SEO 101

We all hear that duplicate content is bad, bad in terms of everything - from academics to SEO!

Search engines despise duplicate content. Why? The reasoning behind this statement is that search engines want to provide users with dynamic results available on the web. That is not going to happen with duplicate content - users will find query results with exact same information for their unique search results. For example, you’re researching on the web on Socrates.  Generally when doing research, you want to find as many variety of information and facts as possible and with duplicate content, the user may not be able to do so and won’t find search engines much as a useful portal for their research.

Search engines want to be relevant to their users’ searches as possible. And in order to do so, search engines try their best to deliver relevant results by filtering out duplicate content pages from search results.

How they filter duplicate content is by determining which page is the original page by looking at site authority, PageRank, and links to the content page.

To find out if your page has duplicate content or if someone else has content from your site, visit CopyScape.

As a business owner, you want to see how well you are doing in search results. So, you get online and do a search for your business name or, perhaps, your name. To your surprise, on page one of the search results are slanderous comments made about you or your business that are not founded. A competitor may have hired someone to comment on blogs or write articles or reviews about your business in order to harm your web traffic.

This is a serious problem and steps need to be taken in order to protect your reputation. But what do you do?

Not much can be found on the web with advice on combating this issue, but there are a few steps that you can take to help reduce the harm these comments are doing. I recently had a client who was in a similar scenario. He is an Austin Lasik Surgeon who specializes in LASIK, E-LASEK/PKR, and cataract surgery with amazing results for his clients in and around Austin, Texas. He is successful because he and his eye surgery staff take the time to answer all their clients’ questions and they put in the effort to be available around the clock for their clients. This can be a very high bar for a competitor. When marketing tactics have failed to make you do better than your competitor, you may be tempted to lower yourself to slander. This is what Dr. Howerton’s competitor did.

This competitor may have hired someone to post slanderous blog comments about Dr. Howerton and his Texas Eye Surgery Center. The interesting thing is, these comments were posted on blogs that had nothing to do with eye surgery or Lasik. They were on a blog about the most random topics.

I was asked to combat these slanderous attacks with SEO techniques. I started with research and brainstorming. This was something new to me and I wasn’t sure where to begin.

1. Requesting the comments be removed.
   I started with going to the sites that hosted these malicious listings and tried to find a place where I could submit a complaint and request that the comments be removed. Not all websites have this option, but some have a place on each comment where you can flag it as “spam” and place a warning on it. You may have to create an account in order to do this, but it is well worth it. Even if the comment isn’t removed, at least it has been flagged so others can see the potential harm.
2. Searched for blogs in his target market.
   Having a list of blogs for Dr. Howerton to leave medical advice on and to leave his URL in the contact area of the comment helped give more places for good listings in search results when his name was searched.
3. Searched for review sites:
   I found many sites for his clients to place reviews about their experience with him and his staff. Creating as many places as possible for good comments will help override the bad in searches. Some sites I suggested for reviews are Epinions, Kudzu, and Real Self.
4. Created profiles on business listings:
   I helped Dr. Howerton create profiles about him and his business where his URL could be left. We added a photograph of him as well as his contact information and address of his Austin Eye Surgery Office. Some sites we used are Epinions, Kudzu, and Insider Pages.

The great thing about the slanderous comments made against Dr. Howerton is that they were comments in blogs and not articles are blog postings. This means that the comments get pushed down over time. A slanderous article or blog posting gets staying power with time. The longer information is on the web, the higher the rankings can get. This means that it is important to start combating the slander right away.

These steps were a good start against the slanderous comments, but I needed to do more. That’s when I started researching.

I came across a very useful blog posting titled Blast Negative Publicity off Google & Yahoo. This post gives five useful steps to attacking slander on the web. I have summarized these steps and added my own comments. So, please visit the original posting at the link in the first sentence of this paragraph.

Step 1:
Contact the website owner about the slanderous comment and politely ask that it be removed. You may have to prove who you are and that the comment is indeed slander.

Step 2:
Look at the keywords used in the article, blog posting, or comment that search engines might be picking up on. These keywords could be your name, business name, or the keywords you use on your website. The author of this blog suggests clicking on the ‘cached’ entry in the search engine listing. The keywords that the search engine used to index the page will be highlighted. Use these same keywords when writing articles, blog posts, comments, or when your clients are writing a review of your business. This will help these good comments to appear with a search and hopefully will appear before the slanderous comments. Make as many listings with these keywords as possible to push out the slander. This is important. Put these keywords in the title of the article, blog posting, comment, or review and in the body text.

Step 3:
Create free classified ad listings and post these listings under the business services category. Make sure you put your name and business in the title and the body text for search engines to find. Use other important keywords in your body text as well. Free classified ad listings show up in search results in the first week of posting. Do as many postings as possible and post them for the longest time allowed.

Step 4:
Write articles about your business and expertise with a title that uses important keywords with your name and business. Post these on your website and on free article submission sites. Be sure to include keywords with the body text including your name and business name.

Step 5:
Create free directory listings. There are many free directories out there and you can leave your name, business name, contact information, a small blurb about your business with keywords, keywords, and a link to your website. Using the keywords that are used in the slanderous material will help push the slander down in the search results.

Trying all these steps will help combat the slander. The situation may improve immediately if you start right away, but it may take a few months depending on how long the article or blog posting has been on the web. The sooner you start improving the situation, the better. If you have any problems or need more help, please be sure to contact your nearest SEO representative.

Good luck!

A new study about the click behavior of web searchers shows that searchers click specialized content within general search results more than they do within the results of specialized searches.

Within the last year, all the major search engines have begun returning blended results for some searches. For these searches, specialized search result types such as news, images and videos appear along the regular web pages on the search result page.

The following study shows which results are clicked most often:

36% of searchers click news results within blended search results, while only 17% click a news result after conducting a news-specific search.
31% of search engine users click image results within blended search results, while 26% click an image result after conducting an image-specific search.
17% of search engine users click video results within blended search results, while only 10% click a video result after conducting a video-specific search.
Images are the most clicked result type after a specialized search.

News items are the most clicked result type within blended search results.

The study also revealed some trends that show that the first page of the search results is getting more important:

68% of search engine users click results on the first page of search results.
Only 8% of search engine users review more than the first three pages prior to clicking on a result.
49% of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they are looking for, change and/or re-launch their search after reviewing just the first page of search results.
37% of online users associate appearance at the top of search results with a company’s leadership within its industry or category.

This clearly shows that it is very important to be listed on the first page of the search results. If your website cannot be found in the top 10 results for your keywords, then you need to pay attention to the optimization on the site.

In addition to getting top 10 rankings, it is also important that your web pages attract clicks. Make sure your web page titles are compelling and that the descriptions attract the attention of viewers and interest them enough to want to click on the link to your site.

Your website must be found in the top 10 results and it must also be attractive enough so that people click on it. If your website is not listed on the first result pages you stand to lose a large chunk of viewers who could be potential customers.