Beauty Store Business

AUG 2014

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66 August 2014 | beautystorebusiness.com and ensure that your text is not blatantly generic or easily found on any number of other sites. Moreover, if you're looking to rank high on Google's special "In-Depth Search" tool, go for an article that is 1,500 words minimum. "High-quality content is still king," Dale says. Skerik agrees. She says she's seen a shift away from Google's previous laser-like focus on keywords and a shift toward Web pages that focus on a specific, overall topic or theme. "Focus your messages, and have a specific audience in mind," she says. Adds Matt Lacuesta, a SEO account manager at Location3 Media (location3.com/), a digital marketing agency: "Your content does not need to have repetitious keywords or every con- ceivable variation of a keyword phrase to be relevant for whatever you are optimiz- ing for. As search queries get longer and become more long-tail, the relevance of your page to a theme or category becomes just as important as it does to a specific keyword." The practice is not simply good for SEO, it also makes common sense. Articles that are truly useful tend to attract inbound links from other websites, which in turn bump up the "share-worthiness" of the content on your website—yet another metric Google uses when deciding how far up your website should appear in its search-engine returns. A FEW LAST POINTERS Sorting through all the dos and don'ts can be overwhelming at first. Here are some tips to make the job easier. • Practice good website address and tag hygiene: In the end, much about working with Google's algorithm also means getting your machine to make nice with its machines. That translates into getting the technical side right. Obtain a good Web address. Website URLs should be 100 characters or less and include no more than three subdi- rectories. If possible, include a prime keyword for your website in your Web address and try to avoid the use of numbers in a website address. • Choose title tags carefully: The title tag—the word or phrase that describes your page to the search engine—is one of the most important choices you can make to attract Web traffic. Essentially, your title tag is going to be the text that people click on when Google returns the search-engine results for your page. Generally speaking, keep title tags to about 60 characters and include an appropriate keyword or two if possible. • Be equally particular with header tags: Header tags—the H1 tags that are included behind all the pretty colors and images on your Web page—are also major guides that Google and other search engines use to find and categorize your page and website. Generally, your H1 tag and your title tag should be the same keyword or phrase. • Don't forget image tags: Too many web- sites are littered with cryptic image tags that completely frustrate the search engines and offer no clues as to what the image is actually about. Don't let this happen to you. Use your title tags to finely describe what your image is about—and reap the reward of overall higher ranking in the search engines. Concludes Ahern, "Google only knows what you tell it about your site. You might have the best and cheapest service around, but unless you put that information on your site with good quality, informative content, Google has no way of knowing. SEO is hard work, but it's not magic. Read SEO blogs, learn the industry jargon and dive in. Make sure you take advantage of the free tools available: Google Webmaster Tools, Google PageSpeed Insights and similar tools can give you a lot of information into what Google wants to see from your site." ■ Joe Dysart (joedysart.com) is an Internet speaker and business consultant based in New York City. FANTASIA ® It's your time to SHINE! Fantasia offers a complete line of hair polishers for all types of hair. Hair looks and feels healthy, natural and luxurious with a maximum shine. For a noticable difference in your hair, try Fantasia's Hair Polishers. Now... it's your time to shine! HAIR POLISHERS • Daily Hair Treatment • Heat Protector • Olive Moisturizer • Color & Chemically Treated Hair • Carrot Growth Serum Fantasia Industries Corporation © 2014 • Made in USA fantasiahaircare.com G o o g l e S E O - W h a t s W o r k i n g N o w f o r B e a u t y R e t a i l e r s . i n d d 6 6 Google SEO- Whats Working Now for Beauty Retailers.indd 66 6 / 2 6 / 1 4 4 : 4 5 P M 6/26/14 4:45 PM

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