Montreal SEO - Local Search Engine Optimization

by Montreal's SEO specialist, Gabriel Goldenberg aka Bookworm-SEO.

Montreal translucent city skyline graphic

Montreal SEO's city skyline graphic part 3

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Google Program Means 4 SEO Trends - P4

Anyways, getting back on topic, "availability"'s importance for SEO purposes translates to a few concrete practices.

Make sure SE spiders can easily crawl your entire web site without hindrances.
That includes avoiding

problematic robots.txt files,

password systems,

messy code

and anything else that might conceivably cause problems in what Google founder Larry Page describes as linear surfing: someone navigating the web from one link to another. While this may previously have been an issue in SEO, with librarians reaffirming it, you can be sure Google will give this issue more weight in the future, if they aren't already.

Sitemaps are another good idea. (I'm currently working on one for City SEO/M, if you're wondering where mine is.)

The easy rule of thumb here is to make content freely available, easily accessible (i.e. not buried in some forgotten sub-sub-sub-sub-subsection), and equally legible by humans and spiders. More on this later.

2) Credibility - "Does the web site contribute current, accurate information? Is the site author(s) qualified to present the content provided?"

There are two issues in Schneider's view that establish credibility: quality of content and author credentials.

The applications for SEO are as follows.

Review your content to make sure it is accurate and on the mark. Statistics should be cited properly, and context must be given. If you don’t feel you have the time for this, have someone proofread it for you.

Make sure you have an About page. Include professional certifications and whatever else qualifies you to write about your topic. Furthermore, if you are affiliated with any organizations in your industry, display a badge or link of some nature that shows this, while making sure they link to you.

Give notice as to how current the information is. Note that Google's Blogger includes timestamps that indicate when a post was published (and also serve as permalinks).

You need to show that you are, if not an expert, at least someone who is knowledgeable about the field. Someone that can be trusted both because of their expertise, and because their information is accurate and up-to-date. Currently, Google assesses authoritativeness via PageRank and backlinks from other authoritative websites.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their "Anatomy of a large-scale Hypertext Search Engine," noted that human maintained directories were generally reliable. (Anatomy is another recommended read for my fellow SEOs.) For Google to devise and implement algorithms to integrate human generated assessments of authority therefore makes sense to be consistent with what its founders have written in the past, besides being necessary to keep up with the competition (i.e. Yahoo's Del.icio.us). Based on past experience with PageRank, we can expect Google to take into account authority, likely based on a credentials approach.

Read Page 5 for the more trends and tips.
~
If you enjoyed the post, take 30 seconds to subscribe to my free newsletter.

Related articles are archived in the topical categories Google, tips, trends, Google Librarian Center, Google SEO.

Google Program Means 4 SEO Trends - P4 posted by Bookworm SEO @ 6:37 PM

0 Comments on this SEO article:

Montreal SEO Newsletter

The Montreal SEO newsletter and RSS feed share great SEO tips!

SEO - Search Engine Optimization:

Bringing search engine traffic to a website by making it rank high in the engines (Google etc.) for its keywords.

Publications, Citations etc.

Quoted in Marketing Sherpa's Marketing Wisdom for 2007? (PDF)
Look at tip #27.

Published on Sitepoint: The 5 Most Common SEO Mistakes

Published by Pandia: Linkbait's Characteristics

Published on BrandCurve: Best Practices in Search Engine Reputation Management

Optimized and Ranking: Montreal SEO Archives

Related Specialists:

1. Freelance copywriting specialist Bill Hilton

2. Politics and the Web by La Presse's Tristan Peloquin

3. Google Maps and Yahoo Local by Mike Blumenthal, local search specialists

4. Legal Marketing Blawg by popular speaker Larry Bodine

5. SEO by the Sea by patent guru Bill Slawski

6. Brand Curve and Marketing Blurb by marketing expert Susan Gunelius

7. Mike the Internet Guy by Denver local SEO pro Mike Belasco

8. Here's What I Think by professional socialite ~~Paris H~~ Muhammad Saleem

9. Phil's Blogservations by blogosphere expert Phil Gomes

10. SEO Specialist Brent David Payne.

11. Gabriel Goldenberg

12. Gab Goldenberg

Best of Montreal SEO:

Google Maps Ranking Factors
Google Sucks
Political Campaigns: Slacker Marketing
Local Search Engine Submission

Google Maps and Local SEO:

Google Maps Mania
Google Maps API blog
Google Maps Advertising
Bill Slawski on Local SEO
Sharon Fling, Local SEO

Resources for SEO specialists:

1. Aaron Wall's SEO research extension for firefox.

2. Google Adwords keyword research tool.

3. Nichebot Multi-Engine Keyword Research Tool

4. SEOMoz's PageStrength Tool

5. The 80/20 of SEO - my first readings on the topic.

Request a Quote!

Visit my new site, SEO ROI Services to hire me.

About Gab, aka Bookworm-SEO

Qualifications, prices, services...

About SEO Montreal

SEO Montreal is a Montreal-based local Search Engine Optimization consulting company. Nous sommes une agence spécialisée dans le référencement. It is part of the SEO ROI family.

Le blogue partage des conseils sur le référencement et surtout sur le Local SEO.

My SEO Consulting

1. Established Websites For Sale

#7 Google, #5 Yahoo: Established Websites for Sale.
#11 Google: Websites for Sale.

SEO Consultant in Summer '06.

2. Montreal Hotel

#1 Yahoo: Downtown Montreal Hotel #3 Google, #8 Yahoo: Hotel Montreal.
SEO Consultant Since November 06.

3. Montreal SEO Specialist

#1 on Google, Yahoo and MSN: Montreal SEO.
#2 Google, #1 MSN, #3 Yahoo: SEO Montreal.
#1 MSN, #5 Yahoo: SEO specialist.

SEO Consultant since May 06.

4. Dogs for Sale - October 2007 1 Hour SEO Consultation

5. Dental Seminars - My dad's dental CE site.