Google's New Tool Helps Brick & Mortar Stores Succeed Online

Instead of brands that are based in brick-and-mortar locations finally have a reason to celebrate about ecommerce, Google's Local Inventory Ads. The ads strive to direct web traffic online consumers to local stores carrying the products they are searching for. This is a huge move in the search engine optimization world.

The tool was launched last year and so it's still somewhat new to brands but it seems to be helping them already. One brand that is experiencing benefit from this internet marketing tool is Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores.

What happens is really neat for brands; so when you search for something, for example, "Washing Machines", Google will have ads on the side or top of page, like Adwords, with ads for the product you're searching for. When you click on "Shop on Google" you are directed to a page with listings for all of the products that stores have paid to list under this section, pertaining to your search. You can see which stores are carrying your product, what their price is, and how far they are located from your location (determined by IP address).

So now stores have a bit of leverage on online stores advertising on Google. While the purchasing process of online is easier, it requires no driving or even getting dressed, the ability to immediately own a product and not paying for shipping will win every time.

Sears's spinoff company has been running these ads that utilize location and tell consumers where to find the product nearby for some time. In fact, they have seen 122 percent more visits to all of their 1,240 locations because of this service. Sears has reported a 16 percent increase on inventory ads versus their other online advertisements.

This tool works brilliantly with mobile advertising as well. Shoppers can check out where's the best place to purchase something while on the move to purchase it. It is the best search ad tool so far.

Does your business need to increase its conversions and click-through rate? Then email Integraphix about digital advertising. Our Chicago SEO firm can help your business establish a powerful presence online. 

Is It Time to Update Your Site's Content

When was the last time you changed your site's content? Even if it was just a page or two's worth? If you cannot answer this question, or without a long pause to think, then it is likely time to produce fresh content for your site.

Search engines and humans alike prefer to see fresh content vs. the same, stagnant content on your site. A site that sits with the same content on it for a year or more is a site that will struggle to truly succeed at search engine optimization.

Refresh the existing content now and then and make sure to generate new content a couple times a month, such as a blog, news, updates, etc. This is why an internal blog is great for SEO, search engines like to see that fresh content. Also, you can use this opportunity for images and more substance for search engine crawlers to index and grab when someone does an internet search related to your business.

Do you need this done, have questions, or require internet marketing services? Then contact Integraphix, a Chicago SEO company.

How are SEO and PPC Different?

There are two kinds of ways to get your site to be seen on Google, one is search engine optimization, or SEO, and the other is pay-per-click, or PPC. These two formats of promoting your site on the internet search engines are both similar to each other however they are different and in big ways.

How are SEO and PPC different?

• Where they are placed on search engines
• The potential for traffic
• Cost to rank 
• The involvement your site has

1. The first difference, where they are displayed, is the biggest difference that anyone can notice and not just those of us who work with SEO and PPC. See how at the top of the image, the first link has the "Ad" marker? These are links that were paid to be there and thus, are PPC. The links on the right side of the page have this too. In the past, Google had the PPC links where in yellow boxes but they have very much reduced the yellow and replaced it with the "Ad" icon. The links that do not have the "Ad" marker next to them are organic links; they are placed there as the result of good search engine optimization. 
2. Another big difference, the potential for traffic, is a bigger deal for those who work with these two formats as well as those who utilize them. Yes, you get to the first page of Google faster with PPC, however, most people do not actually click on the PPC links. Why? Well, ask yourself the question (if you don't). Likely, your answer has something to do with the fact that the paid ones are not as credible; they are only there because they were paid to be there & didn't earn their place. It's like the guy at work who is management because his dad owns the company, not because he worked hard, you know? Internet users are 5x more likely to click on an organic link. 
3. The third difference, the cost, depends on several factors. Google and Yahoo! manage their PPC costs differently. Yahoo! does it purely on ranking; if you give lots of money, then you'll have a higher ranking. With Google, it depends on your market, competition, etc. They both set up budgets for you and each time someone clicks on your link, that cost per click is deducted from your budget, likely a daily budget. 
4. The fourth and final difference, involvement of your site, is a big deal too. When it comes to PPC, you do not have to really work on getting your site ready; the more clicks you want, the more money you spend on it. When it comes to search engine optimization, you have to optimize your site to get it working. This means having lots of content, title tags, image tags/descriptions, H1/H2/H3 tags, keywords mixed into the content, images, etc. If your site is not optimized when you decide to do SEO, then you'll have your prep work to do. 

If you are interested in doing SEO, then contact Integraphix - an SEO company. If you want to first see how SEO could help you, we can do a free website analysis. 

Why Content Matters with SEO

Content in search engine optimization is not just something you do, it is the thing you do. Everything about SEO revolves around the content. There are several things to consider when talking about content for SEO but we will focus on the big three: keywords, quality, and freshness.

The Hummingbird update that happened was a big change for the search algorithm that Google put into place. There is more focus on keywords now than ever before once the Hummingbird update came; keywords are to be in the titles of things, meta tags, in the paragraphs, your keyword density, etc. However, in regards to keywords, more emphasis is now on what the article is about and how you are using the keywords within all the content.

In the past, Google studied the search trends around the world and realized they had to improve identifications among synonyms and concept grouping. What does this mean? It means you should have both synonyms that are related to your main keywords as well as keywords directly related to the topic. This has changed search engine marketing strategy for every internet marketing firm in Chicago, New York, San Franciso, etc.

What about the article quality? You now have to write articles that are longer and are much more meaningful. Back in the day, you could get away with articles that were only 250 words but now, that minimum has doubled. A lot of websites have seen themselves get hit by Google because they had too little content. Ideally, webpages of 300, 400, 500+ words do well, even some sites with 1500 word articles do well. The most important thing is how well your articles are written; Google likes to see how well your stuff is written since that impacts its search quality.

Fresh content is a big, big deal. If you are unable to create content from your own mind, then you will need some extra help; having content that you did not make up is not only plagiarism but it will also get you hit by the big ol' Google. Online marketing has a focus on creating fresh, fun content for audiences and for good reason. Write on things that other people are not covering, or if they are, take a new spin on it. Always putting up new content to your site will help you quite a bit!

If you are looking for a Chicago marketing company that can help with your SEO needs, then contact Integraphix. 

Why Use Google Analytics

If your company does search engine optimization then you should be using Google Analytics. Now, this post is not a push or plug for Google but rather helpful advice for how you can understand if your SEO is working, how well, and what you can do to make it better.

When you use the analytics, you can see how many people visited your site for a specific period of time , how long they visited for, how many pages they viewed, how many got to your site through organic means or through directly putting your URL into their web browser. These are great tools to see how how well your SEO is working.

However, another great reason to actually analyze your efforts is to see how people are getting to your website. Are they getting to your site through the keywords that you have been using? If so, which ones? These are questions that get answered if you use Analytics.

Are people getting to your site via computer or are they looking at it through a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet? If they are using mobile devices more, then your site will have to be mobile-responsive so mobile users are able to view your site effectively; otherwise, they may scoot away from your site quickly, raising your bounce rate.

Are people in the area your targeting with your SEO looking at your site? You can find that out with a look at your analytics.

The bottom line is that if you are going to do search engine optimization, then it would be foolish to not monitor that and see how things are working out. Blindly hoping the efforts are paying off could be a waste of time and money.

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. 

9 Easy SEO tips

Search engine optimization can be a tricky, tricky business since things are constantly changing. Google likes to change the rules on doing SEO and normal people do as well by changing what they search and how they do it. So how do you know if you're doing SEO that is quality and will be noticed by the search engines?

1. Put your keyword in your domain. When you obtain a domain name, make sure that your keyword is in your domain name; search engines like to see this. 
2. Put your keyword in after your URL. This is the part of the URL that comes after your domain such as www.mywebsite.com/seo-tips-for-you instead of keeping it generic. Why does this matter? It matters because you have to allow search engines to know what pages are talking about before they get past the URL. 
3. Put keywords in your title tags, Meta descriptions, H1 tags, and web copy. When you have title tags on your site (which you have to have!), meta descriptions, H1s, and web copy, make sure you place your keyword(s) in there. You want the search engines to find things they like when they view your site. They like to see keywords. However, do not do keyword stuffing; this is when you stuff your content with keywords so much that it is overwhelming for search engines. 
4. Don't forget to optimize images on your site. When search engines crawl through your site, they will know if you have images; if the search engine can't determine what the image is, it will not care about the images. Make sure every image is optimized with a description. 
5. Build internal links. Your website will have more than one page and your blog will have more than one post; with these different pages and posts, make sure you create links between them. Have links on pages that connect to other pages or posts and vice versa. Search engines like to see that you have "alternate routes" on the highway that is your website. 
6. Make your site known to search engines. Just creating your site means nothing. You have to submit it to search engines! Submit your site to directories as well. 
7. Make your site easy to navigate. Search engines and people hate sites that take 10 years to navigate. If your site is not so easy that a new visitor can figure it out instantly, then your site will not get much traffic. 
8. Have good content. Your site needs to have content that is appropriate for your topics and that there is enough of it. Make sure your content is not copied or you will face big penalties from search engines. 
9. Get on social media. Have a company FB business page, twitter, YouTube,Yelp, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, blog, etc. Now, which ones you choose matters to reach your target audience so do your research. Chances are Facebook and Twitter are going to reach everyone but as far as what else to add, that's where research will help you. 

Just so you know, if your business has a brick & mortar, then add Google Maps to your site. Search engines and people love seeing this on your site. 

If you are looking for a search engine marketing firm, the contact Integraphix - a Chicago marketing firm. 

Integraphix is a leading Chicago Marketing, Advertising and Creative Agency creating strong brand identity and marketing strategies with our unique mix of advertising, graphic design, web design, and internet marketing expertise. We give free consultations. 

The Importance of Website Audits

If you do search engine optimization, then you have a website. Since you have a website, you should look at how it is doing and how SEO is affecting your website. How do you do this? There are two programs that you should have (in addition to others but we will focus on two) that can tell you how

your website is doing.

Using these two tools below will help you truly analyze how your website is performing and how it can be made better or if you have done everything right. If you want your website to be successful and not get penalized by search engines, then you are going to have to do website audits on your site. Admittedly, doing one can be scary, especially if you haven't done them before, because you may find that you have a lot to fix. These are not only helpful and necessary if you do SEO but also if you do web design because you want to know what to do during your designing so your site or your client's site perform well; if they perform well because of a great design, you will look good, real good.

The first program that you should have if you do SEO, whether for your own site or someone else's, is Website Auditor in the SEO Powersuite package. What does Website Auditor do? This tool looks through an entire website and shows all the structural parts of the website which includes things like the pages, site errors, validation, and much more. You can see things like your Google Page Rank, Alexa rating, where links are from/where they're going, any site problems, warnings/red flags, anything you want and need to know about your website.

The second program you should utilize is Google Analytics. This will give you measurements of how many people are visiting your site, where they are from, how long they look at your site, how many pages, how they found your site, etc. Anything you need to know about who looks at your site, you can find out.



If you are looking for a search engine optimization company, hire Integraphix - a Chicago marketing company.

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!

Updating Your Keywords

Successful search engine optimization is about having keywords. Keywords are what connect your website to what people search on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

While finding the perfect keyword is important to the success of your search engine optimization it is more important to understand why you use the keywords you choose. An SEO consultant agency or internet marketing agency will know the importance of why certain keywords win over other keywords. One reason is because you want keywords that have lower competition while having higher amounts of searches. More importantly, an internet marketing firm will know that the keywords will speak to the company's target markets.

In addition to knowing why it is important to know the right keywords to choose for your search engine optimization marketing but it also what are your next set of keywords? The tricky thing about keywords is that after a while, they become less effective. If you know anything about marketing , then you know that consumers change their minds all. the. time. It is frustrating. Consequently, while certain keywords will work for a while, you will have to change them after a few months because people are no longer searching for those words as much as they used to.

Keywords are a cornerstone to successful and search engine optimization . Do it right and you're golden. The only trick is this, you won't always do it right.

Why You Should Do Social Media Marketing

Why do social media marketing for your business? Is it even worth it? It is definitely something to look into if you want to grow your small business or if you want to build brand loyalty with your consumers. Here's the thing though, you want to grow your small business and you want to build brand loyalty with consumers. Social media has done a lot in the business world and done things that we did not even know were possible.

One way social media has impacted marketing, especially internet marketing is that it has enabled quick interaction between consumers and businesses. For example, Coca-Cola has a twitter account for Doc Pemberton, inventor of Coke, and when people tweet at him, he will respond and interact; of course their other twitters will do the same, but it is just cool to see. Other brand's twitter accounts interact. The reason this is so great is because it makes consumers feel like they are noticed by their favorite brands and can actually have their voice be heard. Being able to talk with a company is like talking to a friend; you are much more loyal and genuine with a friend than you are with a stranger.

A second way social media marketing has impacted internet marketing is by enabling companies to announce news much faster than they were able to in the past. For example, say a company want to announce a new promo opportunity or something like a logo change, they can do it via social media in a few minutes; in the past, they would have to rely more on traditional media and public relations to do this work.

A third way that social media has impacted marketing is by allowing companies to go places that they were not able to go before. I don't mean that they can establish offices in geographic locations that they couldn't before but rather get involved in things they couldn't before, or at least with as much ease. For example, MLB was able to post pictures on Instagram during the home run derby when in the days prior to social media, they couldn't post their own pictures of the home run derby as the derby was going on; not that there were rules against it, but uploading pictures to the computer and then to the internet took a lot longer than simply hitting a single button on Instagram.

Overall, social media has had a huge impact on marketing and has so many benefits to it; if your business is not in on the social media buzz, you can be missing sales and exposure.

Why Your Company Needs a Blog

Yes, we have decided that we are going to 'blog' about 'blogging' today.  If you constantly find yourself putting off starting up a blog for your company, you should get started as soon as possible.  There are about a million good reasons why a company should have a blog and as a Chicago SEO company, we cannot stress a blog's importance enough.  If you have been putting it off, here's why you should get started today:

1- A blog is essential to boost your SEO: As a Chicago SEO company, we constantly tell our customers how effective a blog is for boosting their website's SEO rankings.  Search engine crawlers love, love, love fresh, brand new content being added to a website on a constant basis.  Sticking a blog right on your website will give you the ability to add that fresh content every time you post something new.  Postings give you a chance to utilize keywords and show search engines that you are actively using and updating your website.  When we do web design for a client we typically create a built in blog right on the client's website.  We suggest having multiple blogs if you can keep up with it.  The more blogs your company has that link back to your company's website, the better off you are in the world of search engine optimization. A blog, whether your blog is through blogger or you are using a blog on your website, gives you a great place to add links back to your website, which is also a great way (if not the best way) to boost SEO rankings.

2- A blog is a great place to show that you are the expert in your industry: Refine your list of potential blog topics and stick to talking about topics related to your company's industry.  Say you own a coffee shop, then topics that you should blog about should all surround the industry you belong to.  Keeping it relevant will help search engine's crawlers identify who your business is and what you do and will give you a chance to become the expert in your industry.  Your blog gives you a special place to show what you know and impress potential customers.  

3- A blog is a great way to interact with potential and current customers: A blog is a great place to spearhead conversations with your potential and current customers.  Your blog will keep your customers informed and has the ability to help you reel in potential customers.  Just like your social media profiles, blogging is another great way to bring the social aspect to your business.

4- Your blog will help you build your brand: Blogging is a simple way of helping you establish your brand.  Blogging gives you the ability to make your brand more personal and drive more traffic to your company's website, which in turn helps you build your brand.  Perhaps lots of people begin reading your company blog, then great!  Put on your sales hat and lead those blog readers back to your company's website.  That gives your company all the more potential to get that brand exposure you have been craving.

5- Blogging will help keep yourself and your customers in the loop:  Since your company blog should take on topics related to your industry, it can serve as a learning tool not only for your readers and customers, but also for yourself.  A great way to stay current with the latest industry trends is to blog about it.  Your blog could also serve as a vehicle for communicating the latest company news almost like a company newsletter.

Looking for tips on creating a company blog?  We'd be happy to discuss blogging with you.  Feel free to comment below or contact us.

Social Media’s Role on SEO

The new year is vastly approaching and you want to drive more traffic to your website.  Makes perfect sense to us!  As a team of web designers and SEO specialists, we cannot stress the importance of SEO enough when it comes to getting more traffic to your website.  We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: social media greatly affects SEO rankings, but what is social media’s role in it all?  Here’s a few ways that social media can and will affect your SEO rankings:

Social media site content speaks to the search engines

Okay, well sort of!  Social media content, when updated regularly and when well written, lets search engines know that your business is an active online participant.  If and when social media engagement becomes a ranking factor for your website, you will surely benefit if you spend time on social media sites.  If you haven’t immersed yourself or your business in social media, now is the time to do it.  Don’t have the time?  Set up a consultation with a social media company or a marketing company well-versed in speaking social media. 

The more links back to your website the better

The more sites that link back to your website, the better your SEO rankings will be, so this means all those social media sites you have created and began using are great links back to your website.  Because social media sites point back to your website, it will help create better SEO rankings for your website.  As an SEO firm, we always tell clients to picture their website in the center of a spider’s web and that it’s their job to create extensions from that web that will bring people straight to their website.  That is exactly what creating and using social media sites will do for you.  Perhaps someone didn’t find your website yet, but they did find your social media page.  Great.  Now bring them to your website and sell them on your services and products.  That’s what it is all about!

Be an active participant

Don’t expect to receive any kind of rankings boost just because you finally set up that Twitter account last week.  You have to be an active participant and yes, the search engines know who is an active participant and who’s not.  This means that if set up your social media accounts a year ago, but have never used them, they will not do you any good.  Try to set aside time out of your day each day to post some relevant content for potential customers to read and for search engines to grab on to.  Being an active social media participant means that you are posting great, original content, reposting other people’s great content, and interacting with potential customers.  If you find that you just do not have the time consider speaking with a social media firm or a marketing company.

Social media sites provide an opportunity for optimization

Social media sites are a great place for optimization tactics to take place.  Utilize social media sites as a way to get friends, fans and followers back to your website.  Social media profiles can be optimized for search similar to internally optimizing a website, so tag your images, write a great about us or company bio and utilize those keywords. 

The ability of sharing content greatly affects rankings

Encourage friends, fans and followers to share your content.  Sharing content is a great way to give your search engine rankings a boost.  Use strong calls to action in all of your posts and encourage readers to share your content through social networks.

Comment or questions are always welcome, feel free to comment below or contact us.

What to Expect When You Begin the SEO Process

You’ve began the process of search engine optimization in hopes that it will boost your search engine rankings and get you and your website in front of a larger audience.  What is to be reasonably expected when you begin the SEO process?  Here are a few things to expect when beginning the SEO process:

Rankings won’t happen over night

Often times people will post a blog or two, insert a few links and expect immediate results, but unfortunately SEO doesn’t work like that.  SEO results take time to appear.  Most SEO resources will tell you don’t expect to see any results until the 3 to 6 month mark and for the most part, that is somewhat accurate. 

As a Chicago SEO Firm, our search engine optimization specialists say that there are a lot of variables that will cause a website to rank or not rank highly for chosen keywords.  One variable would be the chosen keyword’s competition association.  If the words you have chosen are highly competitive words (meaning lots of people are using the same keyword) it will be a lot harder for you to rank on it.  It doesn’t mean you should discard the keyword, it just means it may take awhile for you to begin ranking on it.  The other variable that could really affect your ranking results is your industry competition.  If you are in an industry where lots of people are optimizing, then you should expect your own ranking results to take a little more time. 

It’s a time consuming process

Search engine optimization can be a very time consuming process for people and as an SEO firm, we completely understand.  Backlinking, blogging, social media postings, directory and article submissions, and all the other little external optimizing your doing can take up some serious time.  That is why there are lots of SEO companies out there.  If you’re going to pursue doing search engine optimization or really just internet marketing yourself, make sure you put aside enough time out of your day to be able to do it.  Doing the bare minimum isn’t going to get you those results you’re looking for.  If you find yourself with no time to do it (like so many people out there) consider looking for an SEO firm to do the work for you.  Typically, an SEO firm will charge you a set fee per month to perform SEO work.  That set fee will usually include a whole bunch of services determined necessary by both the client and SEO firm.  Working with an SEO company is a great way to get a professional's view on how to get the most out of your website.  An SEO company will help you map out a strategy that will get you rankings.

Stay on top of frequent algorithm changes

Every so often you can expect algorithm changes. In fact, SEOmoz reports that “Google will change its search algorithm up to 500-600 times.”  While most updates made are rather minor, it can still greatly effect your results.  Stay on top of the latest algorithm changes and do your SEO research as frequently as possible.  Another benefit to work with an SEO company is that their search engine optimization specialists stay up to date on the changes knowing exactly when they need to tweak your SEO plans to make sure you are getting the most of your chosen SEO package. 

Have comment or questions regarding beginning the SEO process?  Feel free to comment or contact us.  

Things You Need to Know About SEO

As a Chicago SEO Company we know that starting the all-important process of Search Engine Optimization is no walk in the park.  While many people want to see results overnight, the truth is that it could take anywhere from three months to an entire year to begin seeing solid numbers.  When starting SEO there are some basics you need to take into account to help see your website begin ranking for your chosen keywords.  Here’s our list of the core basics:

1- NO duplicate content: Under no circumstances should you copy content from someone else’s website and paste it on your own and not because that is just plain stealing, but because you will be punished by the search engines for such conduct.  The search engines are looking for original content and in that process, they are apt to rank websites with original content much more highly and penalize anyone who has duplicated content.  Search engine's are all-knowing.  They know who put up the content first and who put it up second and will punish the website that has the bootlegged content accordingly.    

2- Backlinking: Backlinking, what most SEO companies deem as an external SEO service, is the process of providing links to places outside of your website that link directly back to your website.  When you create links from external sites they need to be carefully created to be valuable as links for search engine positioning.  Backlinks are a great external SEO tactic to help your website to improve in search engine rankings. 

3- Quality content: As we already addressed, not only can your website content not be duplicated from another source, but it also needs to be good quality content.  Keyword stuffing your content, which just means filling your content with as many keywords as possible, will only hurt your rankings and the search engines will see that you are doing that and penalize you and your website accordingly.  Instead create great, engaging content that utilizes your keywords properly and that will help you increase your SEOrankings.

4- NO hidden text:  Are you hiding text in your website in hopes that you can trick the search engines into ranking you?  Think again!  Search engines are extremely smart and know when text is being hidden and yes, they will penalize you and your website for it.  Just say NO to hidden text!  Stick to lots of visible, quality text.

5- Powerful title tags:  Title tags are undoubtedly one of the most important parts of searchengine optimization.  Your title tags should comply with the theme of the page.  Each page should have a different title tag since all of your pages are different.  Search engines look to title tags as a simple phrase that lets them know what the page is all about.  It helps greatly with rankings, so make sure you are creating great title tags for all the pages belonging to your website.

Check back with us next Thursday as we continue on with our SEO-themed Thursdays.  If you have any comments or question regarding SEO, feel free to leave us a comment below or contact us with questions.