3 Things That Can Harm Your SEO

SEO has a lot of components to it and each one is essentially as important as the other parts because they all contribute important aspects to successful SEO efforts. If you do not do all of the different components currently, your SEO will suffer. However, there are three things that harm your SEO without you really even realizing it. Well, until you read this blog post.

1. Not having fresh content. Not having fresh content when you write things like blogs and articles, as well as your website content, means that search engines will not like you. If you don't have original content, then that means you copied it from somewhere else and that is plagiarism and a big no-no to search engines. What will happen? You will be penalized by either have bad rankings and even getting your website blocked. Believe it or not, copying content you wrote but for something else counts too; did you have a great article that you think would make for a wonderful blog post as well? Well, you can reuse it but you'd better change the words and rewrite it or you'll be in some trouble. Trust someone in the search engine optimization business who does blogging, search engines know when you do this. 
2. Having a slow loading site. People expect websites to load in less than a second. So what if your website takes 5 seconds to load, or worse, 10 seconds? In the grand scheme of things, waiting 10 seconds for something like the internet to load and getting upset is ludicrous, but it is what it is. So how does a slow website harm your SEO? Well, the point of SEO is to get your website more exposure and get more people to visit your website; if your site takes too long to load, people give up on it and leave. People giving up on your site does not accomplish the goal of SEO; in fact, it raises your bounce rate which can harm your ranking chances. 
3. Poor navigation of the website. This can harm your SEO because if a search engine crawler has trouble moving around your site, it will not send a favorable report back to Google, Yahoo, whoever, and it will not look good for you. Also, if people have trouble, navigating your site, they won't return and that won't be good for you either. 

Take a look at these three things when analyzing your site and its promotion. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Integraphix - a Chicago marketing company and we'll be glad to help you out. 

Big Changes Coming to Google for SEO

So, there are plenty of changes coming to the search engine optimization world, Google will be releasing an update to Penguin. This one is called *drum roll* Penguin 2.0! Shocker. BUT, it is important for you to know what this means so your site does not get hit, or if you're an SEO consulting company, then your clients' sites. Google promises that this update will be a real trouble-maker.

A big deal with this change is the update's ability to shake down all the SEO on the internet and crack down on any spammy and poor quality links. What this means is that you will have to check your site's links by performing an audit. Even if you think your links are good, do not assume, do an audit on your site's backlinks and links. Avoid links that are attached to SEO inspired sites, like backlink farm sites, and things of the like. Also try to avoid links with contrived anchor text, or anchor text that has been beaten to death.

What you will want to do is to build a list of all the backlinks you have for your site on the internet, you can do this by using SEO SpyGlass. Next, look to see what links you have that are still active and what links you have that are dead, remove the dead ones. Third, look for any questionable links that are tied to your site, ditch them ASAP; check for the domain IP, domain age, Google page rank, Alexa rank, and external links. Fourth, look for links with suspicious anchor text because this kind of goes along with the notion of questionable backlinks and using overly optimized keywords/anchor text. Fifth, look for any poor backlinks to your site with your own eye, maybe the SpyGlass missed something. And lastly, Talk to webmasters about removing the bad links.

This blog will hopefully help you avoid poor rankings due to poor back links but there is more you can do, for a complete run down, do a Google search of the new update and see for yourself. We will make it through this update!

Fake Page Rank: What is it and how to detect it

Chicago SEO

Fake PageRank. Is this new to you? It was new to me until I saw a link request come through the other day from a website that claimed to have a Page Rank of 5. Of course, being dutiful, I checked the site out, not really intending on taking the bait, but noticed something odd. There were only 5 articles on the site and the domain age was only a few months. How could this website have a PageRank 5? Let's back up though...I'm going to tell you what a fake page rank actually is, how to check for it, and unfortunately, how to get one. Since PageRank is important for Search Engine Optimization, it's not surprising that people have found a way around getting high PR websites the ethical way. Read along to see how shady SEOs are scamming poor webmasters into paying for links on websites that will soon lose their relevancy.

Fake PageRank: What is it?
A real PageRank is Google's way of giving a website credibility and authority. A Fake PageRank is this: when a domain expires, the PageRank of the domain is still valid until Google updates their PageRank for all domains. Some cunning SEOs have bought up those high PR domains and built websites on them in a matter of days creating...a brand new website with AWESOME PageRank. But the PageRank is from the old website. Most definitely not the new one.


How to GET Fake PageRank
Just like I said - buy an expired domain with awesome PR. If you participate in Link Exchanges, which I suggest you do NOT - watch out for websites that are new, have little content on them, or appear to be spammy. They probably are!


How to check for Fake PageRank
The easiest way? Search for the domain in Google search, http, .com and all. What you'll find is a ton of 404 Not Found links from the previous website. You can also find out how long the website has been up by checking WhoIs and any Domain Registrar. If the website is less than a year old - the PR is most likely bought and paid for.