SEO Techniques Questions

What About Plug Boards?

Monday, December 11th, 2006

I have not been in the class in about a year so maybe you have covered this recently.
Plug Boards are popping up everywhere:
1. Do they help at all for SEO?
2. What do you think about them for marketing outside of SEO?
Thanks,
Cynthia Powell, South Carolina
Chicks & Cubs

Hi Cynthia!
You didn’t mention if you are asking about plug [...]

Image Search Optimization

Thursday, November 30th, 2006

Cricket,
It seems that more and more people are using Image Search tools in Google and Yahoo (and others). I have done a lot of reading about how to optimize your images & pages to increase your image search ranking. At one point, typical keyword searches in Google Image search were finding and ranking images from [...]

Impact of Design Changes

Friday, August 4th, 2006

Hello Cricket,
The good news is that I’m not just getting traffic, I am getting sales! I hadn’t had any from the site until I began your course and made some changes. I’m on the first page of Google for many of my search terms.
My problem is that the template that was one of the few [...]

Stop Bad Incoming Links

Monday, July 31st, 2006

Dear Cricket,
Recently I noticed that there are some unsavory websites linking to my site. I am concerned that this could reflect poorly on the credibility of my business or affect my search standings in Google.
Can anything be done to stop these bad incoming links to my sites?
 
Tina Clarke, England
Original Abstract Art

Hi Tina!
Beyond contacting the webmasters [...]

Impact of Font Size on SEO

Monday, June 5th, 2006

Dear Cricket,
I know that some fonts are better to use than others simply because they display correctly on more computers, but I was wondering if the size of the type I use in my product descriptions has any impact on SEO . I personally like larger type (I do wear reading glasses) and think others [...]

Impact of Domain Age on SEO

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006

Dear Cricket,
Is it true that if you purchase a domain name for 5 or 10 years or more it will improve your google ranking, rather than paying for 1 year at a time?
Charles Buhrmann, Texas
Texas Programmer

Hi Charles!
It is believed that Google may take how long you have owned a domain into account when determining the [...]

Moving To A New Domain

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006

Hi Cricket,
I am going to be changing my domain name this week. I consulted with a trademark attorney and decided this was the best thing for me to do. Further research revealed 3 others using the same business name I initially chose.
I am not indexed by the search engines yet as I just uploaded my [...]

Changing Your Web Hosts

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006

Cricket:
I am curious if I switch web hosts how that will affect my current SEO rankings.
I am with several hosts now and I think it is needless to spend money on others when I can just have one host.
When switching are there any special considerations I need to take?
 
Craig Mullins, Pleasanton, CA
Pleasanton Daycare Childcare

Hi Craig!
As [...]

Content Management System

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006

Hi Cricket!
Content Management Systems are increasing in popularity by quantum leaps. Because they are driven by php there seem to be serious SEO considerations and/or consequences. Are you going to be addressing this issue in your classes?
Do you know if Google is planning to adjust its spider bot code to be able to index CMS [...]

Should I Exchange Links?

Saturday, January 28th, 2006

Hi Cricket!
Since my site is being seen by more, I am getting more requests for linking. Today I received one from a site that sells coffee makers–which would be great since my site sells coffee/tea. However, upon further inspection I realized this site (the-coffee-maker.com) is actually just an entire affiliate page. Yes, it’s coffee makers, [...]

Google Link Search Operator

Friday, January 27th, 2006

Hi Cricket!
I have another question for you!! This is regarding link exchanges and google. When I type in link:www.craftedcustomgifts.com google only sees 7 pages that link to me. However when I use a link popularity checker I see many more people who have linked to me.
Why doesn’t google recognize these links and what can I [...]

Google Search Placement

Friday, January 6th, 2006

Hi Cricket!
Does the number of hits on a page affect where it shows up in the Google results? My page with the keyphrase Custom Christmas Stockings went from #97 on Dec. 1st, to #9 on Dec. 31st! I did get a lot of hits, and contacts from customers.
Thanks.
Kelly Feibes, Lexington, KY
Primarily Practical Knits

Hi Kelly!
Most likely, [...]

Built In Shopping Carts

Sunday, December 11th, 2005

Hi, Cricket!
I’m writing concerning not my primary website, but my Craft Cave website. I have been trying to find an inexpensive web hosting package which includes a built-in shopping cart. The host I use for our primary site is great, but too expensive for my secondary, small site. I did check out 1&1 per your [...]

Link Management Software

Saturday, November 26th, 2005

Hi Cricket,
Wanting to do a link / resources page on my website, but there are too many links to do it manually, so I need some sort of search engine script to put them into categories etc. Could you recommend anything like that? Thanks for your help.
Regards,
Erica Mueller, Sydney Australia
Earth Repair & Restoration

Hi Erica!
I do [...]

Removing a Page

Thursday, November 3rd, 2005

Hi Cricket!
When I discontinue a product, what is the best way to handle the now-obsolete page? I have a custom 404, but I wondered if there is a preferred way of doing it.
If I am replacing the product with a somewhat similar one, is there any advantage to keeping the page but replacing the content [...]

JavaScript and SEO

Saturday, October 22nd, 2005

Hi Cricket!
I have a program that I use to help me maintain my website and it has a portion for “Optimize pages” where it gives you advice on optimizing the pages for search engines. It’s really helpful to check on keyword density, weight, word counts and such before I publish. One of the things that [...]