Tag - Naperville Search Engine Optimzation

17Nov

Free Web Directory

We are adding a free web directory to the assorted list of tools used by Naper Design. When focusing on web design, it is imperative to ensure that the website built has the opportunity to be seen. Our web design practice has been blessed in the last few months with several good clients and a network of fellow web designers who are coming together to make a greater impact on this area. As a result of these new networks and contacts, and an increasing desire for our web design to be seen by more, we have worked with Naperville SEO Inc to build our fist free directory at the Naperville Business Directory. There will be more coming in future days and we will be designing them more completely to function with a more vast community across the web. Again, we are incredibly grateful for the web design and development opportunities that have presented themselves this year.  With the addition of these sites, we will move forward into the new year with a more broad outreach for our clients.  Please register your business with us, regardless if we maintain your website or not.  Our goal is to ensure that all small businesses in Naperville have the opportunity to be seen.
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17Oct

SEO Through Algorithm

Today I was approached by someone in Naperville that swore they had found the secrets to all of Google's Algorithm.  I am not one to be so distrusting of people, but this statement is always a Red Flag that something is wrong.  There are several reasons to never believe that anyone alive has completely solved Google's constantly, changing Algorithm.  It would also be safe to say, that anyone who eer could would not be working in a No Name SEO group in Naperville, Illinois. hidden links Here are just a few reasons why no single individual can solve for this Massive Equation.
  1. It is a Massive Equation.  The last best estimate assumes over 250 separate and distinguished parameters involved in the monstrous equation.  It's simply inconceivable that any lone person can at any time make the calculations needed to outsmart a constantly evolving AI.
  2. It is an AI.  While there is a dedicated team of engineers who devote their entire careers to this Algorithm, Google Bot and the Database behind it is running more of itself than external control.  With this scenario in place, there's no way that any SEO expert, in Naperville or anywhere else in the world, could conceptualize every move this AI will move to next.
  3. While we know some of Basic Criteria  that are factored into the ranking system of the Google Algorithm, SEO in any form is limited by the fact that some of it will always be a misnomer.  Certain Criteria are known, but their weight can change on a very(and sometimes daily) basis.
  4. SEO for Google can be a daily event.  Google's Algorithm has been known to change variables more than once within the same day.  While major updates usually happen every 1-3 months, the system is making constant small adjustments.  It's not feasible to collate that much data and determine ranking to the most finite detail.
There is some Good News though:phrase-identification So far in this post, I have been bashing some guy in Naperville who thought he'd found the Holy Grail of SEO.  While I seriously doubt that he thought before speaking, there's hope for him to end up ok.  We do know some of the basic building blocks that the Algorithm looks for.
  1. Domain- Domain naming and SEO through domain have a direct influence on what page you will come up if they match the specific keywords being searched for.   This is the "No-Brainer" of SEO.  Last week I noticed we did not have the number 1 slot in Google for the keyword "Naperville SEO".  The reason is that someone had set up a site with the matching url while I missed my chance to purchase it.  In passing up this option, the Google Algorithm immediately launched them to the top slot.  This will not complete the puzzle for him though.  While simple changes such as Domain and Url manipulation can help with a giant and almost immediate boost, they have no chance without durable SEO work to back them up.  I have no doubt that we will again take the first slot for the search terms "Naperville SEO" because he has done nothing more to improve the site.
  2. Linking- Inbound links from established and reputable sites is a necessity for anyone wishing to improve their site recognition, traffic, and if it matters to you, Page Rank.  Page Rank is not exactly something I care about, but what it symbolizes is.  The placement of quality links on informative sites will mean more traffic to your site.  The Page Rank is just an added bonus that can only be seen in the rear view.   Having links from high Page Rank sites will improve your ranking to an extent, but having many, many links from across many, many spectrum of the internet, will heighten the chances that visitors will find your site.  Ultimately, why are your links out there?  Do you wish to have a vanity trophy of Page Rank, or are you more concerned with building quality traffic and elevation in the SERPS?
  3. Content- If you aren't giving quality time and effort to your written content, you are not going to receive the ranking you could from the search engines. There are many services now that will even write your content for you.  Here in Naperville, and throughout the entire Chicago are, there are businesses of writers that do nothing but write content for Website SEO.  This is becoming a highly specialized career field and is one of the few areas of job growth for good and thoughtful writers.
  4. Have Fun- If you are working your own SEO, have fun with it.  If you've taken on the task of maintaining your own SEO, enjoy the experience.  The good and the bad moments can be entertaining, but if it becomes a beast of burden, turn it over to someone that can take on the challenge.  Ensure that they know what they are doing as well.
Those of us who build SEO for a  living are usually willing to offer advice or point someone in the right direction if asked.  As is, the one SEO "expert" that should not be trusted is the one who is unwilling to at least offer direction to those seeking it.  We don't give away the Keys to the Castle, but a SEO Engineer is usually willing to point the way. That being said.  Here is a list of the top 25 SEO Blogs as defined by Daily Blog Tips. -Enjoy-
#1 Search Engine Land
#2 SEOBook
#3 SEO Moz
#4 Matt Cutts
#5 Search Engine Watch
#6 Search Engine Roundtable
#7 Search Engine Journal
#8 Online Marketing Blog
#9 Pronet Advertising
#10 Marketing Pilgrim
#11 SEO Chat
#12 Search Engine Guide
#13 SEO Blackhat
#14 Stuntdubl
#15 Graywolf’s SEO
#16 SEO by the SEA
#17 Link Building Blog
#18 Jim Boykin
#19 SEOpedia
#20 DaveN
#21 Bruce Clay
#22 Blue Hat SEO
#23 Tropical SEO
#24 SEO Refugee
#25 Small Business SEM
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13Oct

Follow-Up on Client Protection and Care

I have been away from the key-board for a few days.  I was asked to help a few friend re-roof a house in Bolingbrook, Illinois.   A word of advice: if a friend ask you to help put up a new roof, ensure he is on the roof helping as well.  He's asked me to help with another house here in Naperville, but this time I think I'll be a bit to busy to join.hidden links I wanted to follow-up on my most recent post.  The responses to Some SEO Companies Aren’t Protecting Their Own brought so much good communication and received enough interaction to be revisited once more. A comment made to this post was key:
"Shane Gray on Saturday 3, 2009
Christian, Good topic. On the whole this was a well thought out and highly relevant piece. I have some more specific comments but they are sort of off topic and ask that you email me for a more thorough reply. It is a pressingBiggest-SEO-Scam issue you present. One of my first ever jobs was making bagels in a small family owned bakery at the end of a strip mall. The business went under because the new owner of the strip mall refused to honor the no competition clause from the previous landlord and allowed a Dunkin Donuts to open at the other end of the strip mall. What you present is the digital version of the same greedy and irresponsible behavior." We've met with several large SEO Groups in the Chicago and Naperville area recently and have been given feedback that would make some cringe.  They were highly upset that we were letting people in on the dirty secret of the SEO market.  From this posting, many thought that we had broken some unwritten code that all SEO groups should never tell the customers the truth about what we do.  I'd like to make it very clear that there is no secret handshake or code that we have with other groups and that all of our loyalties are entrusted with our customers, not our fellow marketers.
If your SEO and SEM group will not sign a "No Compete", you may wish to move on to those who will.  While this is not needed in all cases, for a local marketing campaign, it should be considered a key to success.   Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization are of no use if your Marketer is working for both you and your competition. In Naperville, this has been happening far to often and is taking away from the ability of competing sites to actually compete. The most recent meeting we had was with a gentleman who claimed that his system would democratically rotate his clients through the top pages and spread the wealth of business throughout all of them.  Many businesses who employ him have no idea that this is even occurring.  The customer only knows that they are paying to be listed on the top pages of the search engines.  Why pay for competitive marketing when there's no competition?  Anyone who thinks that SEO and SEM is not competitive marketing is gravely mistaken; were it not, it wouldn't be worth as much in cost and value as it has been elevated to. Again, I've ranted and rambled throughout this entire post, but the message and points made are key to ensuring quality customer support.  If your SEO or SEM group is not offering a "No Compete Contract" you may being throwing your money and potential business into a burn pit.  Consider how much time and money you will likely invest into a quality SEO and SEM campaign; do you really want it to be given to a group that will be supporting your competitors with the same if not more interest than your own. Please forgive the rant appeal of these two post, but for me it is still a sore issue that has a bitter consequence.
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29Sep

Latest work

In the past week, we have gotten much busier and are happy to announce the birth of a few websites.  A new one to the group is for Distinctive Dentistry of Naperville.  Their original site was lacking the back-bone needed to build a quality Natural SEO campaign.  Seeing this, the teem offered to have us rebuild their site in Wordpress and to adopt directorie listing techniques t boost their site performance.  Today the site was ready for personal launch.  Much of it was based off of the Epsilon theme, but many changes had to be made to its code.  The header had built-in scripting that was highly damaging to SEO value.  There were other scripts throughout the php files that had to be either configured or completely replaced.   While starting with a basic theme, one should always consider how useful the theme will be to completion.  This one proved true to the task and we now have a working project for Dr Magno that we feel comfortable with sharing with our viewers.  Please note, there will still be a lot of content changes and minor tweaks as we prepare this site to overtake its neighbors on the Google listings. hidden links Enjoy the before and afters:
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13Sep

Free Directories

On a regular basis, I will be updating this page with the most recent web_directoriesfree directories that I've found on the net.  I do not believe reciprocal or purchased links do much good with the new format for the Google Algorithm.  As a result, I will only be listing directories that are free and have at least a Page Rank of 3.  Should you choose to purchase, that would be your choice, but here in Naperville and Chicago, our SEO and Internet Marketing has been conducted in a completely free manner, yet we are quickly overtaking the web design and SEO searches for the area.  It is good to consider, why pay for something you can get for free? This list includes both the site link and the Page Rank of the directory:
Aauml Web Directory 5
Jjhx Free Directory 5
Investhz Web Directory 5
I-Dio Web Directory 5
Pcib Directory 5
Ccwos Web Directory 5
Studio Zebre Web Directory 5
Digital Returns Directory 4
DLOAB Web Directory 4
DKX Free Web Directory 4
Invitation Directory 4
Cedpro Web Directory 4
Project Inner Space Directory 4
Amray Directory 4
Urban Void Directory 4
Felzenberg Web Directory 4
YepNew Web Directory 4
Clear Indices Directory 4
Neks Directory 3
ProjectEmpowerment Directory 3
Winding Sheet Directory 3
Cisos Web Directory 3
NBHA Free Directory 3
Pontofla Web Directory 3
Mozizona Web Directory 3
TK Free Web Directory 3
Replacement Shield Directory 3
Celdca Web Directory 3
Linkroo 3
Xwdn Web Directory 3
Tournament Directory 3
Hitang Web Directory 3
Cqcea Web Directory 3
Mistu Directory 3
Eubc Web Directory 3
Web Directory 2010 3
Lyuban Directory 3
Cafelaunch Directory 3
Zero Gravity Directory 3
Baritony Web Directory 3
Rfidststemsonline Web Directory 3
Dofol Web Directory 3
A Visual Web Directory 3
Chaqra Directory 3
Seal Bait Directory 3
Bombeiros-Algarve Directory 3
Link Site Directory 3
Vankia Web Directory 3
Bikeut Web Directory 3
Pengs Search Engine & Directory 3
DHD Web Directory 3
ArticlesZones Directory 3
Foqe Web Directory 3
Big Web Directory 3
Wilridge Directory 3
PonosRijeCana Directory 3
American Services Directory 3
Abbsl Web Directory 3
Saint Directory 3
Kupmed Directory 3
Oloffson Directory 3
Nepotistic Directory 3
Wqlj Web Directory 3
Dwna Web Directory 3
MktData Web Directory 3
Jet Pack Pilot Directory 3
Loco Magic Web Directory 3
Rumble Beat Free Directory 3
Help Me Directory 3
Lebateauivre.com Web Directory 3
Ifccfbi Web Directory 3
Mapgh Directory 3
Timbenderhats Web Directory 3
Stent Card Directory 3
iWait Web Directory 3
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11Sep

5 Web Design Elements Not To Overlook

Web design is tricky business. Often small things that go unnoticed turn out to be significant in impacting the overall performance of the website and further influencing crucial factors like website traffic, revenue generation and conversion figures. typing Here are some factors that are often overlooked but are by no means unimportant and should be taken very seriously.hidden links Mystery Meat Navigation This is the type of navigation where icons or pictorial buttons are used to represented navigational links. Unlike regular navigation links, they are devoid of text that defines its location. Therefore users are left to wonder the location by themselves. This handicaps the browsing experience because users are often unable to locate the designated look. Mystery meat navigation require JavaScript and images in order to function. This also bloats the size of web pages and increases their load time. This further hampers the accessibility quotient of the website. Even if you decide to use images for link, make sure you complement them requisite text links as well in order to make the navigation menu accessible and usable. Smooth and flawless browsing experience ensures rich user-experience. Page Titles Page titles are the texts that is displayed on the title bars of the web browser. It is the 'title' of the web page and should define the contents of the same. Many web designers make the mistake of writing the website name first followed by the page contents. Ideally, the title of the content should precede the name of the website in the title bar. This is because Internet users and search engines are able to locate the contents of the website more easily. Contact Information Websites are your corporate face on the world wide web. And it is very important to establish your credibility. One of the ways you can ensure this is by letting your audiences know that there is a live presence behind the online presence and providing them a point to get in touch with them. Providing adequate contact information not only grants legitimacy to your online business but also helps your visitors to communicate with you. Provide your business address, relevant phone numbers and a mailing address. If you are concerned about undue spam, provide a secure contact form on your website. Site Map One of the oft-forgotten but extremely important feature of a website. Many web designers forget to include a site map on their website. A site-map lists all the links of all the pages of a website according to the hierarchy and order. A site-map acts as a links page for search engine pages to crawl and also aid estranged users to locate their exact positions on the website and navigate to where they want to go. Moreover, sitemaps also strengthen the internal linking of a website and provides a defined structure for the same. Standardized Markup In order to ensure the proper accessibility and usability of a website, it is very important to maintain a standardized mark-up. Be it using tables for layouts or the proper use of line breaks, just about everything counts for proper markup. Use semantic markup that ensures forward compatibility. Original Article can be found here
By Best Design Venues, SEO, Wordpress, , , , 2 Comments
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03Sep

Congratulations to Naper Design

As of this morning, Naper Design is the #1 ranked site for the search term "Naperville SEO".  In only 1 month and 12 days, Naper Design has shown the ability  to use non-purchased SEO and natural feeds to build site traffic.  Now our goal is shifting, to also add a top 25 listing fr Chicago.  If anyone thinks that sounds like setting a low goal, please feel free to Google "Chicago SEO".  The goal is not only reachable, but we hope to be listed within this ranking by early October.  We will also be focusing on increasing our rankings for the search terms "Chicago Web Design", "Naperville Search Engine Optimization" and "Naperville Web Design".hidden links bragging Please feel free to verify the results.  We were listed #1 this morning.  As you can see, there is no login to Google, so nothing would be effecting the indexing based on preferences. This is further proof that large cost, local SEO groups are charging more for their services than the average business should be paying.  This is in no small part a benefit of the mapping techniques discussed here
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28Aug

Improve Search Engine Crawl-from DailySEOBlog

Ok, I said earlier today that I barely ever re-post another persons work, , but it's not often that I find two incredibly written and informative articles in the same day. I also haven't had the most time to look around for good info in a few days because of work. Either way, I think that this posting deserves a read as well. The suggestions involved are ones that are valuable to know and sometimes we need to focus on more ourselves.hidden links Links within the posting have been left intact because of their weight and merit. At the end of the post will be a link back to the author. hidden links Enjoy seo-p

10 Tips to ensure better search engine crawling of your site

Even if you have an amazing site, sometimes you have to wait for ages to get some pages indexed and crawled on Google.  Why does this happen ? I’ve found many people complain that after building a great site, and doing the standard chores, waiting so long for the results doesn’t make any sense. Certain things just don’t happen as planned. Like certain pages on a site, doesn’t get indexed and if indexed doesn’t get the right visibility on the search engines. Strange. I can probably attribute all these problems to a couple of SEO factors. Let me try and explain them below.hidden linkshidden linkshidden links

1. Set a sitemap, with the right priorities

Setting a proper sitemap solves most of the problems often. But don’t take this lightly as we have many automated plugins to do the job. Many a times, the automated plugins need good tweaking to ensure that they have the right settings for your site. I have written several posts about sitemaps, like this one, check it out.

2. Publish articles regularly in a predictable fashion

This is not a  way to “control” how often the bots visit you. Google has its own algorithm to find out when it should visit you, but publishing more articles in a regular fashion sure does give Google clues on what your posting frequency is like. Nothing wrong in publishing articles in random, but I’d suggest you keep it pretty much in a predictable fashion so we make the process easy.

3. Link well contextually and often between posts

Cross linking between pages contextually is a great way to make sure that the bots visit all those pages. Contextual links are given more importance probably than any other link on the site, so make use of them.

4. Keep the directory structure simple

If you have a self designed website, make sure you keep the directory structure simple and not too deep. Having more directories to crawl will make the job difficult for the bots. Keep it simple.

5. Block the unnecessary pages with proper SEO techniques

Along with making sure that all the pages are crawled, also make sure that the ones you don’t need to show up in the search results are blocked. (Like the TOS page.) You could use the Meta Noindex and the robots.txt exclusion protocol to get things done.

6. Make the navigation bar simple and accessible

Often I see websites with complex, fancy navigation bar annoying. I mean, it doesn’t have to be fancy to impress your visitors right ? You could use classy CSS styling to get elegant looks and still impress them. The problem with fancy navigation bars are that they often do more harm than good like not allowing proper crawling of the pages linked. There are various techniques you can use to make the navigation bar attractive and still allow smooth crawling, employ them.

7. Practice deep linking

Always practice deep linking (you shouldn’t be having a deep structure in the first place.) if you have a big and deep directory structure. Do not miss out linking to any directory/pages. Use clever linking strategy to link all the directories/categories and pages each other. If possible link to all the main category indexes right from the homepage.

8. Make use of proper anchor texts and internal text links

Linking to pages with images and other elements may also result in poor crawling of those pages. Use proper anchor texts to share the contextual factor among your pages and directories.

9. Keep the URLs simple and easy to remember

Confusing URLs are neither good for Google bots as well as visitors. Google bots love simple, meaningful URLs and visitors love URLs with recall value and those are easy to remember. If you don’t want to screw up things, keep the URLs simple and easy to remember (both for bots and humans). P.S – Google does not have any problems with seemingly confusing or meaningless URLs. They still make out the content from the page, however having meaningful URLs are a definite plus.

10. Use the homepage very well

The homepage as you know is likely to gather the most link juice and importance compared to other pages on the site. (This is just a general observation, but if a page gathers more links to it, it could also get more authority and link juice than the homepage.) Use the homepage well, and add more links to the inner pages from it, so they share the authority. Essentially, factors like how fast to index, how often to index and how deep to index are decided by the search engines. But to a certain level you can control their crawling speed and frequency. The points above are good pointers to this, hope they helped you.hidden links
By Best Design Venues, SEO, Wordpress, , , , 6 Comments
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28Jul

Search Engine Optimization

process-seo In recent years, the claims have been maid that a company can place you on the first page of search engines with a fair amount of ease.  If such a day did exist, it has long since passed.  Presently, SEO is a complex and time exhausting process.  It does not have to be a pained task, but there is a requirement for time to be invested into it.  Fortunately, blogs and CMS have become the favored manner of boosting productivity and traffic to ones site. Becoming connected through other sites on line, along with key words tend to remain the only strong SEO theories that have true power above others.  It's not to say that other methods do not work, but I personally try for the notion of free before anything else.  A great article on SEO and Site Traffic was written by CNN Money HERE. There are also various outlets of ideas in boosting SEO and Site Traffic.  One group known as HubSpot utilize a website grading tool.  The results and tips given after running your domain through this program are quite beneficial to the basic output of ones site.  It would be highly suggested to begin small with steps like these.  Anyone who's conducted your site build should have included Meta Data, Alt Tags and Key Words for at least your main page.  It should be noted, if you have a Flash Based (Not Flash Included) website, you may be hurting on real optimization.  Because of its layout, flash player sites have very little if any text to be indexed by search engines.  They also take forever to load... Something the average visitor to your site may not be willing to wait through.hidden linkshidden linkshidden links One posting a week will be geared toward site developement, SEO or Wordpress. Thank you
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16Jul

Why We Love WordPress

For years, Joomla has been the web, industry standard for the Western Suburbs of Chicago.  With its deep archetecture and powerful functionality, Joomla has held off many of the most formidable Content Management Systems(CMS) to be promoted within this region. While we respect the programing and developing power that Joomla offers, we also believe in placing the power in the customers hand.  It is our belief that once you have purchased a website, you should be able to then easily update your content. Recently a series of reviews were made comparing Worpress and Joomla.  While both are powerful programs, we wanted to post an excerpt to show our customers why we choose to build in Wordpress. The original article can be found here here " To WordPress or not to WordPress WordPress is basically a very user friendly blog system but it can be used as a regular site which you can update without any knowledge of html (the same goes for Joomla). You can create pages and posts, and with plugins, you can add a lot of functionality included standard in Joomla, except that all code is web standard.  And because WordPress is web standard, Google really loves it.  So, from a marketing standpoint, WordPress is hard to resist. The interface is easy to understand, you won’t need a book for it, although buying a “WordPress for Dummies” - book will save you some time if you have no experience with blog management at all. Adapting the look requires some knowledge of CSS, the style sheet language. Like with Joomla, if you select a template close to what you want, adapting the colors, logo etc.. is not that complicated but if you do not want to get involved with CSS, and you would like to re-arrange navigation elements as well, you might consider hiring a web developer. Since WordPress has a logical structure, it is easy for a developer to change things around, place ad banners etc…Again, give preference to a specialized developer used to work with WordPress. It is setup very quickly and you can be listed in Google within 2 days.  I haven’t seen any other system doing that so far. A normal site takes up to 2 months to get listed in Google, so this is something to take into account.  Anybody can learn enough in 2 hours to create content with WordPress right away, including using categories and sub pages. WordPress can handle tons of visitors.  It will not break down easily." 2
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