Thursday, July 23, 2009

Keyword: sewer drain

URL: http://www.sewerdraincleaning.com/

Mombubot Score: 3

This page is a few tweaks away from the top 10! The first important change would be to the title tag on the page. Presently it reads "$49.99 Sewer or Drain Clog Cleaning Queens Brooklyn Nassau New York - Home".

Well a common issue with some sites is that although information may be relevant for the owner it really doesn't match what people will search for. In this case the "$49.99" I would suggest be removed from the title tag as well as "or" so that the title reads "Sewer Drain Clog Cleaning..."

I am sure no one will know the exact price they are looking and certainly will not search for it so having "$49.99" in the title takes away from the search rankings. Taking out the "or" adds some relevance ranking points as you will get "sewer" and/or "drain" and people looking for "sewer drain".

As is don't on this pages, including your pricing on the page is where is should be. As this is a focal point of the page and part of the sales position it works well in the page.

Take the irrelevant content out of the title!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Keyword: elearning library

URL: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=112098106245

Mombubot Score: 0

What is this, a mombubot score of zero ranking in the 11th position? I would have said this couldn't have been but it just shows the power of good overall site ranking and we know Facebook certainly has good ranking.

The page does have some reference to elearning library and it is highlighted and recent which helps but really it is the site ranking which is helping this page.

So another lesson from the social network and the power of this network to carry your message forward. Facebook and other social networks are not only a great place to have people connect to you and your message (ie. business) it also as we have seen here takes your message outside of the social network.

With the object of having more people visit your pages, engaging in social network activity can only help. So get out there and poke a few people!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Keyword: tapscott

URL: http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=13

Mombubot Score: 6

This page ranked quite well with a mombubot score of only 6. It does have the important best practices in use with Don Tapscott as the first keywords in the title and used in a highlighted way in the body. The copy is a little long for optimal and the page is missing meta tags.

Unlike what you will read in several places on the web, meta tags are important. Meta tags such as the description tag is highlighted by google to make sure they are unique. Uniqueness helps to show that your page is different from other similar content.

Similar content in the search engine world can be deadly. Similar pages are grouped together and are down on the list when searched for. One the best version will be presented with good ranking and that may not be your page. So remember the meta tags and keep your content different and unique from other pages on the web, including your own pages.

Don't forget the unique meta tags!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Keyword: design

URL: http://www.oswd.org/


Mombubot Score: 9

This page ranks very well with a mombubot score of 9. You would expect this of a site which has a focus on web design and standards. With a few minor alterations this page should make it into the top 10 of this very competitive space which returns over a billion results.

I would first suggest the keyword "design" be moved to a more predominant position within the title tag. I have written about this before, however, it is worth repeating. The title tag is a very important element for search engine best practices and should command special attention. Do your best to have your keywords right out front as the first word within the title bar.

Another thing which many pages present are acronyms such as "OSWD" on this site. I would suggest all acronyms be expanded as in this case to "Open Source Web Designs" which would be a little more SEO friendly.

Spend a little extra time on the TITLE tag with a focus on your targeted keywords!

Keyword: Briefcase

URL: http://www.applied-cs-inc.com/bcintro.html

Mombubot Score: 4

When I first went to this page it was unreachable. Unreachable but still in position 11, what to do? Well, I checked the link again and managed to connect to the page. This brings up an important point about web pages.

It is important that response time be as minimal as possible. Search engine bots will only index pages they can get to and ones they can get to quickly. Any long delays and the bots will move on to someone else's page! This is similar to the experience I had, I was very close to moving on.

Make sure your page is reachable and is not to heavy with large graphic downloads etc...

As for SEO on this page. Well, it is a very simple page with the keyword as the product being offered. This means the page is well targeted to the keyword. You will notice that multiple colours where used on the page for the keyword which is a best practice to highlight the keyword. There are man search engine best practices which could be used on this page to bring it into the top 10.

By far the important issue is make sure your pages are accessible and provide a quick response.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Keyword: oconee

URL: http://www.oconeesc.com/HR/index.htm

Mombubot Score: 5

Right in the middle with the is mombubot score of 5. This site's home page has the number 1 listing and this page from the site as you know sits at position 11. Quite good positioning for the pages on this site.

Let's investigate a little more about this page. Well it who says Microsoft Word doesn't create good HTML. This page was generated by Microsoft Word 11. It is missing some key HTML SEO best practices such as Description and Keyword meta tags and there are no uses of the keywords in the image or header tags, but it still ranks well. Okay why does it rank?

Two best practices stand out first: the keyword in the domain and the keyword in the title. But the ranking of the number one page will also pull this one up.

The one thing to note especially on this page is that it is a current employment listings page. This implies that this page is updated on a regular basis with new listings. In fact, based on the page data this page was created back on 2006, so it has been around for some time and it was updated today. Fresh content on an old page certainly helps with providing relevant fresh content and relevant fresh content is a search engine best practice.

A number of factors come into play with this page but the relevant fresh content certainly helps with the ranking. How often do you add good new content to your site?

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Keyword: monmouth

URL: http://www.habs-monmouth.org/

Mombubot Score: 7

This page could have achieved a better mombubot score simply by working on a few little things. The copy size and density go hand in hand to take advantage of the best practice. This page is a little short on content and the ratio with the keyword is a little off.

As well, there is no us of the keyword in the header tags within the page. These are the html tags H1, H2, H3, etc... A common issue with many sites is that the header of the page is a graphic rather than text. On this page it would have been really easy to have the header as text within an H1 tag. These are the little tweaks which can make a big difference.

So remember to look for the small stuff too!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Keyword: social security

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/10/social.security.numbers/index.html

Mombubot Score: 8

A big company with a big site and not surprisingly they are doing well with a mombubot SEO score of 8. There is also lots of good content on this page with a focus on social security numbers, however maybe a little too much. The bots have to get through all the data and if there is too much they will leave.

The page does also use a URL with the targeted keywords and CSS layout which provides some added SEO best practices. There are a few too many links on this page as well.

I would suggest that if some content is trimmed from this page and a few links removed this page would rank in the top 10.

It all comes down to focus on your content for this page!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Keyword: business calendars

URL: http://www.nebs.com/nebsEcat/products/categories/holidaybanner.jsp

Mombubot Score: 1

This page scored very low with a mombubot score of only 1 for "business calendars", but they must be doing something to obtain an eleven position. So let's investigate a little further. Well, it appears that when the keyword is broken up the pages has a mombubot score of 9 for each keyword individually.

This means that the page isn't specifically targeting "business calendars" but they are using "business" and "calendars" in an optimized way on the site. If you look at the page you will see that in most cases "business" is followed at some point by "calendar" so the ordering points are good, but could be better.

Proximity of the two keywords could be improved to place higher for "business calendars". As such, when the keyword phase is broken apart and searched for this pages doesn't show up. It is important to monitor your site and see what combinations of words you already my have a good ranking and then tweak it a little to get even better ranking.

Do your pages rank higher for some other keyword combinations on your pages you were not expecting? This means your target keywords are not as effective as they can be and perhaps some alterations are in order.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Keyword: clean technologies

URL: http://www.springer.com/environment/sustainable+development/journal/10098

Mombubot Score: 8

This page had a high mombubot score of 8 and only missed out on density and link text. Link text is very important to search engines as well as people searching.

It is important to have relevant information in the link text and include your keywords in that relevant link text. This includes links back to the original page or location on the original page.

People will follow links as they are the pathway to the information they are looking for. The search engines know this as well and suggest this as a best practice to follow.

This includes the link text you use for your navigation. Very often you will find site navigation with HOME listed as a link. It would be much more effective to change the link text to something which includes your keywords such as in this case "Clean Technology Home".

Make your link text as effective as possible by including your keywords and don't forget the navigation link text.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Keyword: beach cruisers

URL: http://www.makaibikes.com/

Mombubot Score: 8

Another mombubot score of 8, well done! This page is very obvious it is about "beach cruisers" which are bicycles for those not in the know (like me when I came across this the first time).

This site like many others uses CSS to layout the content, however, in this case Table layout would have been the better choice. When you intend on presenting data in a tabulated form then you should use tables that is what tables are for.

Another thing with this site is that there are a huge amount of pages indexed. This site lists over 5000 pages indexed. Usually having many pages is a good thing as people can find your content if it is indexed, however, in this case the focus is taken off the keyword "beach cruisers" as the entire site is about many other bike related stuff.

Along with the amount of pages there are too many links from this page. When building a page a best practice would be to keep the links to under 100 on the page. This can lower page ranking.

Link carefully on your web page!

Keyword: email marketing

URL: http://www.getresponse.com/

Mombubot Score: 8

This page does a lot of things right beyond the mombubot score of 8! One of the great design features they have included is a javascript run header. This header provides flash type animations but also allows search engine bots to easily read the content because it is based on CSS and regular HTML markup. Yes, some bots can read the contents of flash files but this has the added benefit of providing further importance based on HTML markup such as H1 tags.

If you look closely at the "Email Marketing. Solved." title you will see some great design features such as shadows and reflection used to create an appealing title. Usually this is done using one solid graphic including the text but not in this case. This is just plan old HTML markup and text combined with CSS. Much better for SEO. Well done, you don't often see this.

The css layout is also followed through for the whole page. Again, this makes reading the pages eaiser for the bots. Perhaps some inclusion of keywords within the image tags would have assisted in putting this into the top 10.

This is a great example of where good design and good SEO work together.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Keyword: rumba

URL: http://www.viihdeimperiumi.fi/lehti_esittely.asp?lid=Rumba

Mombubot Score: 7

Everybody rumba! I am not much of a dancer, but you can feel the excitement simply in the word rumba. It just sounds like fun.

Anyway, here we find another non-North American page from Finland which ranks quite well in the .com search. I am sure the mombubot score of 7 is helping, but let me look a little closer.

There is lots of content on this page and it is beautifully organized using CSS layout. Again, this allows the search engine bots to read the page easily and keep the content in context. The context is what helps the search engines determine ranking.

The pages uses the domain http://www.rumba.fi/ but redirects to the URL which also has the keyword in it as an ID tag. This redirection is not the best approach. It would be much better to have the content fall within the rumba.fi domain. This could be loosing some ranking by doing this.

The word rumba is used in strategic locations throughout the page. Even with the good use of the keyword, the density is still a little off of what is the best practice. This could be an area to investigate further.

The pages also uses internal links with the keyword in them. I haven't talk a lot about internal links but they are very important. More on internal links later.

Watch the redirection!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Keyword: superdry

URL: http://www.hahnsuperdry.com.au/


Mombubot Score: 0

Okay, our first big fat zero mombubot score. Well this begs the question, "Why did it rank in the eleventh position if the score is zero"? Well, good question (if I don't say so myself). Several factors add to search ranking and many of them are out side of SEO top 10 best practices, however, first one little technical detail. Mombubot reviews the page using the exact keyword, in this case "superdry" but the search engines will also rank "super dry" with a space.

Soooo, why the 11th ranking? Well there could be a number of reasons some follow.

  • the domain names contains the search keyword
  • the page uses CSS Layout
  • within the limited content on the page, super dry is used
  • 1.8 million competition for this keyword which is not huge
  • popular brand

How do they move into the top 10? Well try the mombubot top 10 best practices first. As this page ranks in the top 10 for "Super Dry", I would suggest that any changes be done lightly. Although you can target several keywords for one page, if you are getting good ranking with one stay with it if the traffic is coming. If you rank number 1 and nobody comes to your site then perhaps the keyword should be investigated further.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Keyword: Messenger Bag

URL: http://www.hammacher.com/publish/76519.asp

Mombubot Score: 7

This is an online store page where you can purchase items. It is very important in dealing with the competition that you maintain all the SEO top 10 best practices you can. Having good product detail is key and including your keywords is critical.

This page does a good job of adding lots of content about the item being sold. I have seen many pages selling items where there is very little in the way of information and this is a mistake.

Remember that feedback can also add to the content and help out with SEO. So make sure your online store has the ability to accept feedback and publish the feedback on the product item page.

To benefit from good SEO you have to make sure the page is clearly identified for the search terms. Try not to add too many other products to the page as this can alter the focus of the page and hurt the targeting you are going after. As well, a clean clear page helps potential customers actually purchase from you, which is the ultimate bottom line.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Keyword: forgiveness

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOue14kMFVw


Our first video page found in the search engine 11 position. This page had a mombubot score of 8 which is great! Remember alternative content types are very important. They get good visibility and can help people find your message.

Remember when posting video or any other content for that matter that you include your keywords and use the search engines best practices. Mombubot can help you optimize your page to any keyword you target. The higher the score the better optimized your page is.

Don't forget to include a link back to your main web page so that you can engage the searcher further. Provide the content they are looking for and you will have a fan.

So post your different types of content but don't forget the keywords and best practices!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Keyword: showcase

URL: http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/

Mombubot Score: 6

A good mombubot score. This page is a basic text with the word showcase in all the right positions. Title, H2 tag, URL and first paragraph of the text body. There is a lot of text on this page and as it is actually a showcase of examples it fits the keyword perfectly.

Interestingly enough as of the writing of this entry the site had actually moved to spot 10! Well done for them, however, it is more likely bad news for others who changed. You must be very careful with the changes you do specifically around keywords issues. If you are getting good rankings the more careful you will have to be.

If you are not getting good rankings you can search for the pages that are and run them through Mombubot to determine what they are doing right and copy it!