Various quirks of SEO that you may have not been aware of - #seopodcast 180

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. I am Charles Lewis of Internet Marketing Specialist. Thank you guys for tuning in. This is podcast number 180. Man, it's synchronicity. It's only taken us 100 times to say the number together. 179 times. Yeah, exactly. And then we get it right. Let's just start off with this. Please remember, we are your friendly, local, neighborhood, top position snatchers, where our mantra is, Don't be a deuce. If you can, make sure that you tweet right now. Big C will tell you what to do. Big C, hashtag SEO Podcast. This is number 180. Make sure you tag us in an at eWebStyle. That way we can link up, follow you, you follow us, we can network and link you with each other. Remember, there are many ways you can stalk us, haunt us, and maybe even fool us, depending on how you approach it. Facebook.com slash eWebStyle. Twitter.com slash eWebStyle. YouTube.com slash eWebStyle. And you could do us a very simple favor. All it takes is three steps, or even just one step. We'll go with one on the second thing. Go on to iTunes, create an account, write a review. We would really appreciate that. Only do that if you get a little bit of value out of this podcast, or if you have some constructive criticism. We really love that. If you want to ask a question, frankly, or just think you have some information we may be aware of, or need to know, then yeah, feel free to hit us up and present it to us. We'll be glad to talk about it. Also, you can write a review at our G Plus account. The easiest way to get to our G Plus account is to go to e-webStyle.com slash G Plus. And? G Plus. And? G Plus. And there's one more. G. I forgot the last one. Google. Yeah. The Google Plus. Yeah. Either one, all four of those will take you to our

G Plus page where you can leave us a review. We're just going to, I'm going to keep blowing through this first Gino time limit. We do have a referral program. Go ahead and check out our website at the bottom. There is a link to our referral program. And if you're a CEO and having our challenge with a client, send them our direction. You can still get paid. Remember, you can always get a website analysis. We do do another podcast. It's an actual video podcast on iTunes. And it's the Unknown Secrets of SEVO Website Analysis. SEVO is S-E-V-O. Stands for Search Engine Visitor Optimization. What do you do with a visitor after they arrive from the search engine? Yeah, that podcast is really focused on helping you to get conversions. This podcast really helps you get traffic and get placement, ranking, things like that. But more importantly, what happens after the click? How do you make your money? And so that's what that podcast is about. Tip from last podcast. I just had a brain shut down and restart, thankfully. I'm always happy when I'm here. Tip from last podcast is on a PPC campaign, make sure to use negative keywords to get the most bang for your buck. Definitely. If you're running an AdWords campaign or a Bing campaign or whatever, if you're paying for clicks, then make sure you take advantage of using negative keywords. There are just some words you don't want to rank for. Typically, FYI. I mean, it's V-I-Y, do it yourself, free. You know, there are all kinds of terms that you don't want to be shown for. And so make sure you take advantage of those, usually at the campaign level. Good tip. Also, if you need more PT tips, go back and listen to podcast number 179. That's probably a better tip, but, you know, we'd like to have a tip. News from today that I read today may have been sometime this week. Apple overtakes Samsung on device sales. Did it? Okay, I think I did see

that. Pretty interesting. UK releases their, excuse me, BlackBerry, a rim, releases their newest touch BlackBerry in the UK. Why in the UK? Because it's probably not working here. It's the biggest BlackBerry market, it turns out. In the world, so it makes sense to release it there. Hey, new product, get it out there. Android Key Lime Pie may be coming soon. That's going to, I'm excited about that. It just sounds tasty. And Temple Run 2, have you heard of this game? Yeah, my kids play it. Yeah. Apparently, it's the most downloaded in the shortest amount of time game ever. Yeah, they got me playing Fun Run. Man, and it's like, it's like stupid addictive, right? Yeah, stupid addictive to the point where we've turned it into family time. So imagine, I'm on my phone, my wife's on her phone, the kids on their tablets, and we're all playing against each other. But, yeah, it's a good game. All right, we mentioned Facebook, and we also, we have some questions that were sent to us from Facebook. I'm going to start with this. It's actually a review. By the way, I have the outline of a tier, because I don't have a review on iTunes that I can read. So I'm going to have to extract this, although I probably could have found this one. This is from Bob Assel. He's found us on Facebook. Just about halfway through the podcast, and I've learned so much. You guys really good floating. I'm the owner-operator of carpet cleaning business, of a carpet cleaning business in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I don't know why I say it that way. Still optimizing my site with SEO by Yoast. Tell me how to juicy backlinks, please. How to get juicy backlinks, please, I think. Let me know what you think so far. Elementsrestoration.ca was this website. That's the one I showed you, though. It's just the website's beautiful. Oh, that's that guy. Yeah, great site. Well, okay, a couple of things, which will probably help your backlink problem, frankly. Your site, we

didn't do an official analysis yet. We will. But it's not clear upon landing on your site that you do carpet cleaning. I thought the site looked great. Layout was cool. It was clean. Navigation was easy to find. But there wasn't no clear identification that it was actually carpet cleaning until you began reading. Yeah, knowing that it's carpet cleaning, the website's perfect. Other than the fact that the website doesn't jump out at you, that it's a carpet cleaning website. So great job, actually. So he asked about good content in order to get juicy backlinks, right? Hint, juicy, right? You want something that has some value, some link juice with it. Create great content. Something free. Maybe something entertaining. Something that people would want to link to. That's the white hat method to go. White hat. White hat method to go. And that's what we would do. We'd try to come up with some content that we could share, that we could make social, that we could possibly go viral with, that people would want to link to. Excellent. Another, this is from a longtime listener. And she interviewed us a lot. Aston, just listened to Podcast 173. Thank you for answering my question about relative author tag. I now understand that relative equals M-E is for when I have my own author contributor page on a website where I posted a guest post. The relative author attribute is for when my biographical information appears on the same web page as the post itself. Also, thank you for reposting my article on Facebook. She put that really nice article. That was about videos, right? About SEOing videos? Yeah. And then she had a couple points. Why on the link below, and she's talking about the link that we tend to post on Facebook when we add a new podcast to iTunes, are the partners shown as Chris and a light-skinned, skinny brother named Paul rather than Chris and Chuck? Okay, that's maybe the question I want to ask. That's because I haven't taken the picture. Kick in

the shin to me. We'll get that picture. Let's go with the N.S. Because he worked here. He was doing one of our sales managers at the time, and he departed. And we just haven't updated that one. Why aren't your podcasts linked on Google Plus? My bad. Yeah, our bad. I think mostly mine. Yeah, he's bad. And for the longest time, I had friends on our old website, which is ewebside.com. It's not our old. It's our Facebook page. We have the old Facebook Places page. And we've kept them separate for a particular reason. And so if you want to find our page, it's the one with .com. That's the one you want to, that's the one a friend. I think I've got one. Hi, guys. I want to, this is from Ara Print. I want to start a blog on my own new domain. In terms of SEO, would I be best using Blogger as it's owned by Google? I have no web design experience. Can I buy a template site with Blogger, API, so I can easily create my own site? So, yes, to answer your question, yeah, you could use Blogger. Yes, you could buy a template. Do I recommend it? No, I don't. I'm just a huge fan of WordPress. We are, as a company, it's our content management system of choice at this point for managing blogs and websites and even small e-commerce sites. So, I would recommend WordPress. I think they do have a bigger theme game, and so you probably, since you're not a designer, you'll probably be a theme that's able for what you're trying to do there. Yep, great. Here's another one. Gadget Guys, I just posted a podcast on iTunes. Too much appreciated. Yeah, I was getting confused whether I was kicking or punching. I don't know. Just a big karate. What was the podcast? The Karate Chop. I don't know. I know what you're talking about. Hi. Something like that. He just posted a review on iTunes. How is it you guys only have two reviews?

You're great. Thank you very much. Many thanks from thegadgetguys.co.nz in Auckland, New Zealand. Yeah, we only have two reviews in New Zealand. Yeah, we've got, I think, 105 in the U.S. By the way, if you want to see, I don't know why you wouldn't. I do because I like to read them and not put tear tattoos on my face. At the very bottom of iTunes, there's a little circle that has a flag in it. Click that and you can select another country and then you can see the actual reviews from those other countries. So, cool. That's it. All right. I got a couple of punches in the face as well. These came from Twitter. Punch up to, I cannot pronounce this. I'm going to spell it. At Royal S-I-A-M Beauty. She says, best SEO podcast ever. Siam. Royal Siam Beauty. Siam? Yeah. Okay. Royal Siam Beauty. Appreciate it. They've been a listener for a while because I know they submitted maybe for a webinar or they've been interacting with us for a while. Cool. Great to know that they're still listening. I got one from him. At Martin Perry. I appreciate his. He says, your sound quality should match the level of advice you give. Ooh. Man, that's a challenge. Man, I appreciate it. Yeah. That's a compliment on the advice. And, you know, you're right. So, we're working on it. Are we there now? So, that's the question. Yeah. I don't know which one you listen to, Martin. If you check this out, yeah, tell me which one you listen to then. This one ain't it. And compare the two. And then hit me back and tell me what you think. Are we there yet? If our content is outstripping our audio, you know, we got to, I don't know what we're going to do. Yeah. We got to do something. All right. So. We're going to have, like, the boom mics and get all Janet Jackson on. I don't know. Nah. Malfunction. Sorry. I was going to go there. We're not going to

go there. We're down to the meat, right? We're in the meat of the podcast. Okay. So, I pulled this article here. I actually came across it earlier this week. This one was at Search Engine Land by Tom Schmitz. It's called Non-SEO Quirks You Should Be Aware Of. And so, I went through the article because I'm always looking for different SEO things that we could do or that we could give you guys to do. And so, I thought something was pretty cool. I actually disagreed with one of them. And so, we'll talk about that as well. Well, not disagree, but anyway. So, number one, it says, in subfolder and file names, use dashes, not underscores. I've been preaching this for the longest. First thing, I just think dashes look better than underscores. But, from an SEO perspective, he goes on to say, many developers favor separating words and file names and underscores instead of hyphens. They're conditioned because of some programming languages reserve the hyphens for, you know, and so, the algorithm doesn't read it like that. And so, use the hyphens when you're trying to separate words inside your page name, your address, or for subfolders. So, I thought that was pretty cool. Now, this one's kind of a shot at us. Number two, avoid dashes and domain names. E dash work style. You know, it is what it is. Now, I will say that we actually have both domains, as you know. So, if you just go to ewebstyle.com, you can get there. We like to separate, you know, be very clearly distinguished, the E and the web style, because we like the name web style, and the E is for the old, it's actually old, it's really old. E web style. He says, from a practical perspective, they look cheap and compromised. That may raise the caution flag when you reach out for links and citations. That's what I disagree with. I think when you reach out for links and citations and things like that, if your content is quality, if your brand

is there, and you have something that people want to link to, that they enjoyed reading, then I think they pay attention to the hyphen in your domain name. Apparently, our audio is not that good today. Yeah, we're getting... Getting some flack back. Is that better? I lowered my mic. Carry on. Okay. Number three, in sub-focus and file names, use only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. I'm going to say this one in conjunction with number five, which is be careful with parameters. And so, you have to be careful with the characters you use in your domain name, in your URL. So, if you're using parameters, for example, let's say with Google's URL builder, right, because you want to track various things like the campaign they came from or which keyword they used or which site they came from, frankly, then you add these, you know, ampersands and question marks and things like that to the URL. And, um, you have to be careful. So, well, let me just make this adjustment. Turn both down. Okay, go. And so, you have to be careful with, um, with what you're using because, um, what he went on to say was that depending on the content management system or that's being used or the browser that's being used, it could be interpreted the wrong way. For example, if you're using a percent sign, I think it's like percent sign 20 or something, there's really a space, right? And so, if that's not being manipulated or interpreted right, then you may end up on a 404 page or something like that. So, really be careful with, uh, what you're doing in your URL. Uh, so I'll keep you pushing. Yep. Number six, he says, uh, use Flash or Silverlight to insert multimedia elements, not for all content. Um, we really trying to stay away from Flash when all possible unless it's just strictly for some design deal, um, that's nothing SEO related. What he didn't mention in here was, um, JavaScript. I think a lot of times with jQuery and

other things that are available now, you can accomplish a lot of, uh, multimedia things, HTML5 and things like that to get that same effect that you don't necessarily need to use, uh, Flash. So, I still try to stay away from Flash and I recommend you guys do the same. There's a lot of tools out there that you don't need to use Flash on. Um, number seven, uh, pick, pick one. Either HTTP or HTTPS. And it goes without saying. Unless, I think, um, in some cases it may be okay. Like, if you're, if your site is pretty static and you're just blogging information, but then maybe you're hosting a shopping cart. And so, once people get to that shopping cart page, then it's necessary to, yeah, have them go to a secure server. So, make sure the markup and the text message. And don't go out trying to display something to the user and something else to the search engine. Because, you'll probably get hit with a, with a panda smackdown. You'll get pooped on by a panda. Mm-hmm. Now, I like this one. This one was pretty cool. Use the vertical bar. We call it the pipe. Right. And, uh, in title tags. He says, uh, Google ignores the dashes, but not the vertical bar. And so, he actually recommended a test. If you create some URLs using the hyphen, using the underscore, and using the bar in between keywords and see how those pages rank over time. So, we'll try that. It's something we've always done. Use the pipe to separate keywords in the title. I will say this. The title only has 70. You shouldn't have more than 70 characters there in that title. So, um, if you're, you know, if this is a new company and you feel it, um, you shouldn't have your company name there. Right. Unless you're trying to brand it for some reason or another. Um, go with your most important keyword, uh, bar or pipe, and maybe your service areas. And then, I think that's pretty good

for your title. Yeah. Um, so that was it. Nine, uh, SEO purchases should be aware of. Pretty good article. Um, all we posted on Facebook, um, so you can read it because apparently you probably couldn't hear it good. Yeah. Well, I think it's gotten better here towards the end. So, uh, we'll keep working on that. We need to get a good test. So, Mark Perry, don't listen to 180, right? Especially like 181. Yeah. Next week. We'll be better next week. Um, any blank stare? Um, ooh, I did have blank stare, but I forgot it. Blank stare at me, maybe? Nah. Okay. That's it. Oh, I got a punch in the face to the folks at Google Engage. Um, they sent me a good package. Yeah, go get the Android deal. So, so Google Engage is a program for, for agencies that, uh, that, uh, that participate in AdWords. And so what you do is you, if you participate in AdWords, you sign up for Google Engage, then that allows you to get like a dedicated rep, get some assistance in managing ads, get some, uh, get your reviews, get your, get your ads approved faster, and all sorts of other perks that come with it. And since we, um, hit our numbers, we're a pretty good agency that like dealing with us, sent us a package. I got a, uh, uh, Android stuffy thingy. Stuffy bot. Yeah, bot. Okay, yeah. I felt wrong causing it a bear. One of those, they even sent me a Google Snuggie, which I took home. Funny thing about that was, um, every time I see the commercial for Snuggies, I laugh because I thought it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. But as soon as I got one, I couldn't wait to use it. Yeah. Yeah, punch in the face to, uh, Google, uh, um, um, um, Engage. Appreciate the, appreciate the gifts. That's very cool. Uh, all right. Well, you have listened, just completed listening to podcast number 180. Uh, the audio improved in the middle

of this podcast. Sorry about that. Uh, we really appreciate you guys. We are the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes because of you. Uh, you. And you. Right there. You probably. In between the, in between the bot. Um, thank you very much. Uh, until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. Charles Lewis. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.