Movses Karagozyan - Custom Web Design, Programing and 3D CAD Design in Illinois » Search Engine Optimization

Use Video On Your Website, It’s The New Content King

Movses Karagyozyan — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 05:23:20 +0000

The written word will always have its place, but the internet landscape has evolved and changed the way we think of information presentation. Website users have come to expect an interactive experience, and videos deliver. Here’s how videos became king of content, and why you need to start incorporating them into your website now.

The Rise of Videos

There was once a time when websites were simple and static. Lines of text, accompanied by basic graphics and illustrations, were the limit. But times have changed, and so has technology. Internet speeds now allow us to stream content with ease. Mobile technology enables us to decide when and where to view anything online.

Technological advancements may have facilitated the rise of videos, but they reign for one simple reason: they are the most engaging, captivating type of media.

Why Videos Matter

You may have heard of a little company out there called YouTube – also known as one of the biggest search engines in the world. The appeal of videos is obvious. Text is one-dimensional. Videos are fully dimensional, powerful and humanizing. Text takes time to read. Videos instantly engage. Excellent text is shared, but a powerful video can go viral.

Why Videos boost SEO

A fear that keeps some businesses from integrating video into their online presence is that videos don’t rank well as content. This is a proven misconception. Videos continue to surge onto the web, and people continue to click on them, for entertainment value and to learn. Search engine results reflect this growing trend. Type a question into a Google search engine box and one of your first results will likely be a demonstration or tutorial video. As long as people see videos as relevant, so will search engines.

Why Videos Sell

Videos helps people understand methods, products and services far better than any written description or instructions. That alone helps drive sales. A video on your page means that more time is spent on that page, which lends that page extra value in the eyes of the viewer and makes him more likely to take interest in the other elements and features you have there. Videos serve multiple functions. They establish a human connection. They inform, demonstrate, promote, engage and provide you with a perfect audience building tool. At the end of the day, videos sell better than any other medium.

You need videos, for your web presence and for your online marketing strategies, to engage today’s consumers and to tell a story about your company and your products that truly resonates with your customer base. Videos are your most powerful sales and communication tool. They can boost your site views, propel your social media marketing to new levels and increase your site’s relevance. Videos are the king of content, and great content not only sells, but is also crucial for the current and continued success of any business.

Need more evidence? Watch the viral video below and then check out Poo Pourri for yourself!

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10 Ways to Make Your Website Search Engine Friendly

Movses Karagyozyan — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 09:53:02 +0000

The main goal of a search engine and its rankings is to provide users with the best possible array of websites and information so that each user can easily find what they are looking for. Here are 10 tips to make sure you can rank well in Google, Yahoo and MSN!

1.) Titles

The title of your website should be a few keywords that explain your business. (MovsesMe Web Designs is our main title). Search engines take the words in the title into account when deciding where you will rank for a search term (like “MovsesMe Web Design”) so it should contain words that you want people to find you on. You should descriptively title all of your internal pages as well.

2.) Content

The majority of your web page content should be text because search engines can read text easier than images, Flash or JavaScript. You want to make sure they can easily read all of your content because it directly relates to how your website will rank for a search term. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t use flash or images or JavaScript, just use it sparingly!
Look at our homepage. There is a small bit of JavaScript at the top. It looks nice, its grabs your attention, but it isn’t slowing the load time of the website.

3.) Unique content

Search engines love unique content. Why? Unique content (text that isn’t found anywhere else on the web) gives search engines the opportunity to provide more variety and better choices when displaying search results. They love it so much that when you do the opposite – i.e. duplicate content – your ranking can drop or be black listed.

4.) Updated Content

Updating your content often tells a search engine that you are constantly providing new information to internet users. If the search engine reads something new on your page each time it visits, it starts to read your page more often. Every time it reads your site, you gain trust and authority with the search engine which helps you rank higher!
Frequently updated content can be achieved by having a news section, a blog, a message board, etc.

5.) Loading Times

Flash and JavaScript can really slow down a website’s loading time. You’ve been to those sites – you get to the page and it takes 5 minutes to get anything up on screen and you have to watch an annoying loading animation. Just like you, the search engine doesn’t want to wait around and will leave without reading your site.

6.) Website Architecture

Website architecture is how you set up your website for navigation. How do people get from your homepage to your internal pages? A website’s architecture should be simple to use for your user and for the search engines. Search engines will read all of your pages if each page is easy to get to through internal links.

This video better explains website architecture:

7.) Make a sitemap

A sitemap is like a map of your website. It guides the search engine through all of your website’s pages. It can help search engines read pages that they might not have seen otherwise.
You can create a free one here: www.xml-sitemaps.com/

8.) www and non www URLs

Sometimes websites have two URL’s for the same site. For example, movses.me or http://movses.me. Even though the web pages look exactly the same search engines see these as separate websites. As mentioned before, duplicate content can get you in trouble with search engines because they may think you are trying to manipulate the rankings. To remedy this situation you have to create a 301 or 302 redirect.

9.) Create a link network

Create a link network with related businesses and websites. It not only helps your ranking within a search engine and/or drive traffic to your site – it can lead the search engines to read your page more often (because the crawler finds you through another website). This leads to a greater trust and authority which can result in a better ranking.

10.) Don’t try to fool a search engine

Using hidden text, hidden links, keyword stuffing, etc. is manipulating search engine rankings. It’s a waste of your time and it can get you blacklisted from search results. Seriously, don’t do it – search engines are smarter than you think!

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How to rank up quickly with Google

Movses Karagyozyan — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:28:09 +0000

It’s often asked of me, “How do I get my website to be #1 in search results?” Now if you’re any bit of a techie, I can tell you all about how the internet is evolving at a breakneck pace thanks in part to mobile devices, social media and shifts in how we interact online. But if we cut to the chase, I’m going to have to break it to you that unfortunately there is no magic code that will instantly and effortlessly catapult your website straight to the top (read: you need to work at it). More recently search engines have started to reward websites that are updated frequently and with good quality content.

Posting original, intelligent material on the blog page of your website is perhaps the quickest way to rank up in search engines over your competition.

“Simple! I can do that!” Wait…what’s the catch? For most of us, finding the time to write a blog post or update our website is not as easy as it seems. The truth is that when I'm busy, we simply don’t want to set aside time to come up with something witty yet relevant to our business. Or maybe we don’t fancy ourselves as good writers and publishing a regular blog is a daunting task. I’ve had clients in the past “copy ‘n paste” an entire article and publish it. Sure, it gets content on your blog quickly. But it’s illegal. Oh yeah, and the search engines are smart enough to realize who published the article first. Tsk, tsk.

Perhaps the easiest way to update your blog is to write a short post like I’m currently demonstrating and link to a quality article that someone else spent a good deal of time writing. To illustrate my example, check out this informative article Social Fresh wrote on “How To Use Content From Other Blogs Without Violating Copyright”. You see, the link gives credit to the true author, but all this commentary above is original content. Website = updated.

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How to win with Google’s New Search Algorithm

Movses Karagyozyan — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:00:11 +0000

You may have noticed over the last year that searching for something on Google would occasionally lead you to spam based websites. When I refer to a spam based website, I mean a website in which it’s sole reason to exist is to show up on search results in an attempt to make money off the ads displayed on their website. Most spam websites carry no real value to you, the googler.

As you might imagine, the credibility of Google can quickly come to attention if the search results yielded aren’t quality links. In an attempt to rid their search results of spam, Google has recently implemented a new search algorithm that rewards high-quality sites rich in original content.

The good news with this new algorithm is that if you regularly update your website you’ll immediately gain an edge over your competition that isn’t doing the same.

So what can you do?

Write on your blog! Writing a quality article on your blog once a day would would is ideal, but most of us don’t have the time for it. Set a realistic goal of writing once a week. If it helps, set a recurring calendar reminder to encourage yourself to stay on top of it. If you don’t have a blog or news page in which you can publish articles it may be time to get one.
Share your blog posts. When you’re done posting your new blog article share it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and any other social avenues you’re part of.
Get quality inbound links. Inbound links occur when websites create a hyperlink to your website. Write quality articles with relevant content and you should get quality links. By sharing/publishing your blog posts on social outlets, like Twitter or Facebook, you immediately create the opportunity for your followers to share your link and generate inbound links to your website.
Make sure your website is built correctly. Along with crawling your website content, Google checks your website’s code and sites with poor code and/or errors won’t show up in search results. If you’re unsure of how to check your site for errors, consult your web firm or hosting company.

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How to Write a SEO Friendly Article

Movses Karagyozyan — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:26:47 +0000

Writing an article does a few things: It provides information about your business field, it shows your potential customers and clients that you are an expert in your field, it publishes your business name and it is a cost effective marketing strategy. Here are some tips to make sure your article will be search engine ready.

Title Keywords

The title of your article should include the most important keywords that describe your business. You should think about this like the title of your website. (See our previous post “10 ways to make your website more search engine friendly”). When people are looking for information that your article contains what will they search for?

Headers and Body Text Keywords

The keywords in your headings and body text should sound natural. Write them without thinking about the keywords. Then, after you have finished, go back and add the keywords where they make sense.

Industry jargon is generally something to avoid. It really depends on who you want to market your article to. Unless your article is geared towards industry professionals or business to business clients, don’t use terms that are too technical. They won’t rank well on the search engines and you will have lost a good chance to use a more popular keyword.

Synonyms

When you are thinking about your most important keywords – think about their synonyms as well. Don’t stuff your article with the same keyword over and over… it won’t read well or help your ranking.

Anchor text

Anchor text is hyper linked text. Make sure that several important key phrases are linked to your homepage or related internal pages.

Posting and URLs

Post your article on your website and if possible give it a separate page with a keyword rich URL. This will help your article rank in the search engines and it can build links for you website.

Submit

Submit your article to a few free article websites. Please see a list on our previous post “10 free ways to promote your website”.

Don’t write a press release

People are much more receptive to useful information than a sales pitch. Write about a new technology, a theory, the newest players in your field, a critique of software you use or an evaluation of a new online tool. Give information that highlights you as an expert in the business field without actually saying it.

Credit Experts

Flattery goes a long way! If there is a non competing experts in the field – use a quote from them or give a link to their website. Then, tell them about it. They might link to your article or your site!

Contact Information

Make sure you include your name, your website, and your contact information at the bottom of the page.

Proofread and Proofread Again

If your article is not professional people will not take you seriously. Send it out to a few grammar-enlightened friends. Send it to someone who doesn’t know a lot about your business to make sure it is clear. It will be your first impression to a lot of people – so make it count!

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