For purposes of SEO, should the title tag of my blog post be the same as the post headline?

- Patrick H. 35 / M / Stow, MA

Not necessarily, unless you want to rank for the exact phrases you use as your headlines.

I’d recommend to use the title tag do target 1-2 keyphrases containing in your headline, and use your headline to employ those keyphrases in a useful sentence, providing semantic usage of both the keyphrase and context for its usage.

Thanks Ryan. Would their be any harm in using the same?

No, my recommendation is just a better practice, not a necessity. For the sake of simplicity, you can definitely use the same info for both places with no harmful outcome.

What is Social Media Networking? Is it finishing the requirement of SEO?
- Vineet W. 22 / M / Delhi, India

Think of it as a separate lane from SEO. SEO is about your website, the social media stuff deals with how you are represented on other websites like facebook, twitter and youtube, with a focus on producing and posting media on those websites.

For SEO anchor text, what is the general feeling about extra punctuation included that is not part of a targeted keyword phrase?
- John C. 28 / M / Chicago Heights, IL

I don’t think you need to eliminate all extra punctuation from every instance of that anchor text’s use. In fact, I recommend varying your anchor text. This improves that natural variance of your inbound link profile for the page you are linking to.

thanks!
- John C. 28 / M / Chicago Heights, IL

You’re welcome!

What is a good website to use to create a professional looking business logo? Are there any free options?
- Eric M. 29 / M / Wake Forest, NC

Not sure about free options but the one we have seen people use with the most consistent satisfaction is www.LogoBee.com.

3PRIME also designs logos following a more involved consultation process. Contact us to discuss designing a logo for your business.

What is SEO and how does it help to promote a web site. Where do we go to find SEO’s?
- Ashok G. M / Tacoma, WA

SEO is the process of
1) Researching and Selecting keywords that your potential customers would use to find what you offer
2) Optimizing your website(s) to show up when these keywords are searched
3) Measuring the results of these efforts and being on a path of continuous development.

It is, IMO, the most cost-effective way to promote a website and earn free traffic from search engines. Visitors resulting from SEO are looking for what you offer and have already chosen your site out of the set produced on a search engine results page (SERP). Once one your website, it is the job of your design, language and usability that will earn you their business.

You can find SEO services:
1) In search engines, they better get themselves ranked, at least in their area
2) In the Phone book
3) On a BBB listing, looking for SEO Companies with great BBB ratings.
4) In SEO directories, but keep in mind that those listings are paid so you will mainly find companies with more money than smaller, local SEO companies. Buy Local!

Hope this helps!

How can we increase the quality score of keywords in google adwords?
- Kapil D. M / Delhi, India

2 primary ways to do this:

1) Improve the page that your ad leads to
2) Improve the structure and specificity of your ad groups and ad details

To address the landing page, make sure that the keywords you are bidding on are discussed in the text of the page. Follow basic optimization practices as well as building sub-pages for this landing page to discuss secondary, related keywords. This makes the landing page a more valuable experience to the user, which means they will have a “good experience” following their use of Google. This is probably Google’s primary consideration.

To address the structure of your adwords campaign, you want to try to:
1) Break down your keyword list into groups of 2-3 phrases
2) Make an ad group for each phrase group
3) With these more specific ad groups, make an ad for each of the 2-3 keywords in the group

This means that each ad is specifically optimized for a given keyword.

Now what follows is that, depending on how fractured your audience/keywords are, you should consider creating multiple landing pages and related subpages, such that the landing page is geared for an ad group or set of ad groups.

By aligning your ad group with your ads and with the landing page you link it to, you are working on ensuring that a visitor to google who sees your ad and clicks on it, reaches a page that offers them something valuable (information) and gives them the opportunity to learn or purchase. Doesn’t that sounds like a high quality advertisement?

How do you have your business come up under search engine key word searches?
- Amy H. 28 / F / Boston, MA

Depending on where you are in the process, here’s a quick overview:

1 ) Determine reasonable keyword placement goals
2 ) Make sure your homepage title tag, meta description and meta keywords have your primary keywords featured prominently. Add your primary keyword to image alt tags. (basic optimization)
3 ) Use your website architecture to highlight the homepage for this phrase
4 ) Make sure your primary keywords are present in your homepage text
5 ) Follow the same basic optimization practice on other pages of your website for secondary keywords related to your primary keywords.
6 ) Create an HTML sitemap listing the pages of your website
7 ) While you wait for the search engines to spider your optimized website, find related websites in your industry and contact them to see if they’ll link to your website.
8 ) Find industry directories, and submit your website to them.

With the above advice, you are addressing on-page and off-page factors, making sure your website discusses the keywords you want to rank for, and increasing your inbound links. These are the broad, critical factors that directly affect your websites ranking in search engines.

For more info, visit: www.SpiderGourmet.com. I hope this helps!

Is there any offical tools to calculate the sites visit or ads impression and CTR

- Bevis C. F / Los Angeles, CA

Click through rate is a measure of impressions to clicks, so when measuring it on your own website it depends on what you set as your goals for your visitors. When measuring it on advertising, i.e. adwords, only the advertising website can tell you the impressions your ad received and the number of clicks on your ad.

Can someone tell me why ‘tags’ in social media are so important? Is it mainly for SEO? Is it up to a blogger to add tags? How do tags help me as a user?

- Meg C. F / Washington, DC

Tags are most closely associate with blog postings and pages. It’s imperative that if you are blogging to get search engine traffic, that you tag your articles/posts. They are handy for the user in that, most blogs, provide the ability for users to browse tags by page.

For example: http://blog.spidergourmet.com/tag/aardvark/

You can see the answers I have provided to aardvark users that I tagged appropriately. They function similarly to categories, the real difference is in how people use them.

I am a doctor and want a website, how do I get this created and marketed? – Brian, Chicago,IL

Hi Brian,

The quickest, cheapest way to get started is to:
1) identify the primary keyword for which you want to be visible.
2) Purchase domain with that keyword in it, and hosting for your website (~$75/yr for both at Godaddy)
3) Setup Wordpress on your new hosting, pick a free wordpress theme and get that uploaded. Make sure you give your new blog the same name as your keyword-focused domain.
4) Add content to your blog about your chosen keywords
5) Do a Google local business submission

Then give it about 1-2 weeks for the website to get spidered and see where you rank. Apply SEO principles as necessary.

Feel free to give me a call to talk through this, I am EST so either right now or tomorrow morning. Once you’re setup, the advantage to Wordpress is that you can do most, if not all, of the management yourself.

All the best!