Did your web design company muddy up your web content so much that it’s totally off the radar of the search engines? Here’s one good way to tell: If they post content that appears differently for human readers than it does for search engine crawlers. When they do this, your site receives poorer treatment from search engines when they crawl and index sites.

Now, this kind of substandard content placement is not the same as writing spam. In fact, we’re not talking about written text at all (this time). Instead, we’re talking about non-text-based content, such as copious design elements, like graphics and animation. Technically, those things are content – but they can’t necessarily be indexed by search engines, because crawlers don’t know what to do with that content. They don’t know how to interpret it.

By contrast, your site should start with the basics: lots of keyword rich (but well written) text, and a practical, minimal volume of video, JavaScript and flash content. After that, you need site archictecture that makes it easy to navigate for people & spiders alike. The next step should be to build authoritative backlinks. So to re-cap, a search engine friendly website has three key components: great text content, ease of navigation and a well-executed linking strategy. That’s all it needs to start out with.

Los Angeles Web Design Firms Keep their SEO Colleagues in Business

It’s true: By “over-designing” the websites of clients, many web designers are keeping their friends at the California SEO company down the street quite busy. Simply put, it’s harder to establish good search engine rankings with an excessively designed website – and then clients take their sites to SEO companies for help.

Too many graphics, bloated navigational menus and flash flash flash….it all looks great, but it can mess up your chances of being found – and isn’t being found the goal? There are a couple of solutions here: 1.) Hire a designer who will give you a bare bones website, and teach yourself to write good, strong web content, or 2.) Hire a firm that offers both web design and SEO, like Crest Media.

We don’t keep secrets from the search engines; we know how to build websites that are search engine friendly (with keyword rich, well written content) and we offer SEO services to ensure that no matter what website design we create for you, your site can easily be indexed. These are two separate service verticals, but they can work hand in hand to make your website a success. To learn more, contact our California web design and SEO company today.

As an established Los Angeles SEO company, we are familiar with inquiries over the cost of SEO services. But the truth is, the cost of SEO depends on many things. It’s a little like buying a hamburger; if you’re happy with a thin patty, a couple of pickles and a little ketchup, then the golden arches equivalent of SEO packages may suit your needs just fine. However, if you want something a little more extensive – what California SEO customers might call the In ‘n Out Burger of SEO services – then prepare to pay a little more (especially if you want the milkshake too).

Others have compared it to buying a car, which is also a fair comparison. One writer states that SEO consulting of high caliber will help you:

• Pinpoint your customers’ intent, needs and pressing problems
• Identify customer expectations based on your website
• Decide how you will deliver value
• Expose areas of profitability
• Create solid conversion points
• Customize the user experience

The bottom line is that if you want optimal impact, you may need to budget for a little more. SEO is not a service designed to “fix” a bad website, nor is it something that instantly grants your site credibility the moment a few keywords and links are inserted.

On the contrary, it’s more like building a home; it’s a process that takes time to come to fruition, and requires maintenance even after the goal is achieved. Just as there are numerous types of homes, each of which fluctuates slightly from the next in terms of style, quality and location (which, along with market conditions, determine the price), there are also numerous types of SEO strategies, wrapped up in packages that differ in pricing structures according to who is providing them and what advantages they can offer the client.

Our Los Angeles, California SEO firm is glad to answer prospective client questions on SEO cost. You can also learn more regarding the various components of SEO services by continuing to explore the contents of this site.

Our Los Angeles social media firm is often asked about Facebook marketing. Since we’re a social media agency that helps businesses make the most of Facebook, we found some suggestions recently posted by SEO Optimise to be useful. A few of our favorites are summarized here:

Understand the Account Structure

Unlike Google Adwords, where ads are held within ad groups, Facebook campaigns hold ads within Facebook, and daily budgets for ads are assigned at the campaign level. Each campaign can hold any number of ads, and every ad is self-contained. Ads within a campaign don’t necessarily need to be related to one another, but it is a best practices suggestion to theme each campaign with relevant and similar ads as much as possible. That makes good sense for your brand uniformity and messaging, too.

Always Know Your Demographic

When you make a list of Facebook population segments you want to target, group them by demographics such as females, aged 18-30 or males aged 25 and over. Then, consider the specific interests and concerns of those demographics as they pertain to your product or service. Finally, add those details to the demographic categories as you devise your Facebook marketing strategy.

For example, do those females care more about entertainment news or hard news? (Our social media agency has a pretty good guess.) Are those males married or single, what is their income level and what problems do they have that your product or service can solve? These things matter when you’re designing a Facebook ad.

Set a Fair Bid

Once your demographic targeting is done, it’s time to set your bid. You can set the bid low to save money, but not too low if you want your ad to display. Facebook offers information on ad campaign budgeting here.

The effectiveness of your Facebook ad campaign depends on your attention to detail when it comes to guidelines like these. If you or your social media agency takes them seriously, you’re far more likely to experience Facebook ad success. Our Los Angeles social media firm has helped many business owners gain leads through Facebook and we’re proud to offer that service.

Has anyone wondered – as our California SEO company has – just how wealthy a number of Facebook employees are about to become? The company has reportedly offered generous pre-IPO stock options to as many as 1,000 of its employees. Suffice it to say that they stand to make a substantial amount of money when the stock goes public in the near future.

Since these employees are all based in California, it makes sense to ask if their good fortune could mean a boost to the state’s economy in the near future. According to some finance experts, the answer may be yes. Said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs for the California Department of Finance, “The closest analogue is the 2004 Google IPO,” he said. “Its benefit to the state’s general fund was in the neighborhood of hundreds of millions – at least $400 million.”

How did that happen, and how would it happen with Facebook? Much as it did with the Google IPO, the state will make money when Facebook employees cash out their shares (as many are likely to right away) and then have to pay taxes on it.

Could state revenues from the Facebook IPO actually be more sizable than they were from Google? “If it’s as big as it’s advertised, it certainly has the potential to eclipse the Google IPO — but it won’t happen overnight,” Palmer said. “While the potential revenue gain is certainly significant, it has to be viewed in the larger context of the legislature having to close a budget gap that we estimate to be $9.2 billion before the state’s new fiscal year begins on July 1st.”

The first official data from the state that could reflect any Facebook IPO money affecting the state’s General Fund would be the revised revenue forecast to be released in May. Will it reveal a major improvement in the overall California budget crisis? Not likely, said Jason Sisney of the Legislative Analyst’s Office, an adviser to the California legislature on state budget issues. “This is only going to be one relatively small piece of how California addresses its budgetary issues in the next few years,” Sisney said.

University of California economic professor Richard A. Walker commented on the predictable paths that many of the Facebook IPO cash-out employees may take – for example, founding more small California web design firms, California SEO agencies or other types of Internet-based companies. According to Walker, this isn’t necessarily what the state needs to bounce back. “While the tech boom today is a healthy contributor to the local economy, what the state needs more is ordinary jobs with decent pay, not just high-paid or very wealthy techies,” he said. But as a business owner, you may very well believe that all revenue is good revenue – so what do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

The Facebook IPO is all anyone is talking about these days, which means that any company loosely associated with the social networking giant stands to see its stock rising in the near future – at least if this week’s performance was any indication.

Many of said associates saw their stocks soar in trading Thursday, including social gaming company Zynga (maker of the incredibly popular Farmville game). According to the S-1 form Facebook filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, Zynga generates 12% of Facebook’s revenue. Zynga rose 16.84% in trading Thursday, finishing the day at $12.39 per share.

But companies didn’t necessarily need to be affiliated with Facebook in order to see a rise in trading. Facebook’s plan to raise $5 billion, the largest Internet IPO to date, obviously excited investors enough to pour their money into similar web companies. LinkedIn saw a 6.37% increase in share values, and China’s Renren saw shares rise 8.18%.

Other Internet companies here in the states, such as Groupon, Netflix and Pandora also saw their shares rise in trading Thursday. As Facebook predicted in its own S-1, the revenue generated by Facebook likely encouraged investors to buy stock in other social networking companies in hopes of gaining greater market shares of the next big thing (and there’s always another next big thing).

Some wonder if the Facebook IPO is the point at which the second dot-com bubble threatens to burst. Anything is possible, but this social media agency encourages businesses to approach it the way they would anything else – cautiously and shrewdly, but with enthusiastic optimism. It’s an exciting time to be an Internet-based business!

Google has enacted a number of changes in recent weeks, including alterations to its algorithms, a much-publicized streamlining of its privacy policy and a new development for Google Plus. Some information and insights from our Los Angeles SEO firm regarding these changes:

Google Plus Changes

When it launched Search Plus Your World release earlier this month, Google designed it to be the next step in determining what is relevant to personalized search queries, based on the idea that people’s search results are greatly influenced by their circles of friends. So, with Google Search Plus Your World, your friends’ online experiences are more relevant to your personal search results than links, domain authority – or, it seems, anything else. This new development is vastly different from what most people understood about the perceived relevancy of public web search results. The fallout from this is that if you aren’t happy with the relevancy of your personalized search results in Google Search Plus Your World, it’s the fault of your friends on Google Plus. If this sounds unappealing, don’t worry; according to Search Engine Watch (who also described the additional changes to Google Plus), Google knows this and is still working out the bugs.

Google Privacy Policy

You’d have to engage in a lifestyle where Google isn’t necessary (which is a little like living under a rock) not to be aware of the recent changes to the Google privacy policy. From leading search blogs to news reports to notifications on Google platforms themselves, the secret is out – and that’s the way Google wants it. Accused of a lack of transparency in the past, the company now wants its audience to be clear on the changes to the Google privacy policy.

The most significant changes may not necessarily be the small changes, but the fact that these small changes are components of one larger change – the change to over 60 different privacy policies across Google territories, which are now replaced by one single policy. The theme of the change, which will be enacted on March 1, 2012 is “One policy, one Google experience.”

According to Search Engine Journal, the new change will allow Google to collect data across all of their products and further customize your web experience:

For example, if you spent the last hour searching for information about the New England Patriots, the next time you visit YouTube, there’s a good chance you will get recommendations for videos featuring Tom Brady. In addition, Google will be able to use the extra data to customize suggested search queries, display more relevant ads (i.e. Super Bowl tickets), and alter the search results to match your intent.

Google claims that the effort is aimed at providing a more personalized search experience, with ads that are more relevant to the user. However, privacy advocates are more than a little concerned, as Google will now be capable of collecting information from some mobile phone users and using their data to “personalize” their experience on all Google accounts they hold, whether on that same mobile or their PC. There are personal profile issues at stake as well.

One thing Google wants users to remember? Google representative Betsy Masiello reminded users in a recent blog post that users don’t have to be logged in to use many of Google’s products, including search and YouTube. No data is collected when a user is not logged in. In short, don’t be logged into any Google account if you would like your search history to remain private.

Google Panda 3.2

Google has confirmed reports of a Panda update, with a data refresh of the Google Panda algorithm about a week ago. According to Search Engine Land, there have been no algorithm changes, yet some webmasters have seen changes to their rankings – some good, some bad. Most of that is likely attributed to updates to the sites that should or should not have been touched by Panda in its early stages. This simple data refresh is being coined Google Panda 3.2. For those who were adversely affected by the original Google Panda, it may be good news. For those who weren’t, it may be wise to keep an eye on your rankings.

Changes to Google=Controversy

No stranger to controversy, Google is already experiencing backlash from these changes, in the form of criticism from ordinary users and search engine experts alike. In addition to raising the aforementioned privacy concerns, some are making the point that Google has already failed as a search engine in terms of providing relevancy. Case in point: Google Rick Santorum. Whether or not you’re a fan, ask yourself: Is that what most users who enter his name into a search engine are looking for? Most likely not, but its even worse when one considers this: according to a recent Search Engine Land post, Google’s universal search shows an irrelevant video result for a spammy SEO firm attempting to capitalize on the Santorum controversy, on the first page!

With that in mind, will changes to Google Panda and the privacy policy prevent users from experiencing irrelevant search results? People in the spotlight, or anyone who stands to be googled with relative frequency, should probably hope so. Today, the most infamous example is the above-mentioned Presidential candidate. Tomorrow, it may be someone else. For the sake of everyone who is, or aims to be, a highly searched on public figure, the search community should hope that Google can achieve this “more relevant search experience” goal ASAP; this Los Angeles SEO provider certain does.

For those who aim to be big hitters on social media, this may be something of a wakeup call. Today, being a social media big wig means more than having a few thousand Facebook friends.

Instead, it means that you compete with guys like Chris Brogan, president of Human Business Works and a speaker on the Fortune 500 circuit, who has around 122,000 identifiable Twitter followers with a few thousand being added each week. Even on newbie social media site Google+, Brogan has already amassed a whopping 67,000 followers (unlike many users, who signed up but didn’t know where to start).

Of course, Facebook is still relevant for those who want to be titans of social media marketing. For Mari Smith, a social media speaker and author, it means having 60,000 friends. Twitter is still a bigger draw, though, with 77,000 identifiable people following Mari’s tweets.

While these may seem like mere numbers, they actually translate into real social media influence. Some calculations revealed that Brogan has social media influence that is over 3,000 times more powerful than that of the average Twitter user, and Mari’s reach (aka “social pull”) is 1,800 times greater than that of the average Twitter user.

Now, these may seem like daunting goals to achieve, but they are possible – just not on your own. To attain social pull of this caliber, an individual or business must have the help of a social media agency or full time social media marketing strategist. After all, you need to earn a living while you’re out there pulling your weight! Try investigating your social media agency options before setting big goals for your social media marketing efforts. You may find that an expert can help you draw up a goal-reaching plan that is practical and attainable.

Does your website’s design communicate professionalism with every click? In many cases, small business owners are unsure. Consider the following factors when evaluating the professionalism of your website:

Navigation: Having a website that gets people lost is no longer considered a status symbol. Users are more tech-savvy than ever, but they’re more impatient than ever too. No one wants to click more than three buttons to get to the page they’re looking for (really, two is the standard), so every destination on your website should be no more than two clicks away.

Graphics: If your graphics were designed by an amateur, chances are your website visitors notice this. Plus, many businesses keep the same graphics on their sites for several years; today, this is a big no-no. Looking like you haven’t changed or kept up with the times is a turn off for users, so update your graphics every two years (in fact, it’s a good idea to do a total website facelift about that often).

Content: If you’re involved in a highly specialized industry, then people expect you to communicate your message clearly. It may not be fair, but it comes with the territory of marketing your business. Hiring a content writer or a web development firm that offers content writing is the best way to be certain your content is clear, concise and free from distracting grammatical errors.

Crest Media is a Ventura web design company that can help you evaluate your website’s professionalism and improve upon it if necessary. We know how to design sites that are easily navigable, add graphics that are attractive and eye-catching, and write content that is engaging and effective. To see our impressive portfolio, obtain a quote for your web design project or ask specific web design questions, contact Crest Media today.

If there’s one thing our Los Angeles SEO firm has noticed, it’s that search engine optimization has grown up – a lot. Of course, that’s not to say that bad SEO is eradicated from the landscape, but thanks to efforts like Google Panda and the learning curve of the web population, SEO in 2012 looks to be less about fooling people into reading your web page, and more about engaging them along the way.

With that premise in mind, we present you with some key SEO strategies for 2012:

Simplify code: “KISS” is an acronym that definitely applies to the web development community. By keeping code simple, you’re keeping it honest. And the new age of SEO is all about honesty. By following best practices and getting as close to validated markup as possible, you can make it easier for spiders to crawl your site – and by validating HTML and CSS, you can minimize crawl errors. By naming your header div “header” (what a concept!), you can make it easier on Google, Yahoo! and Bing to locate it when a user searches for keywords in your header title. The natural result of these steps is a more authoritative site in the eyes of the search engines.

Streamline web design: Right now, there’s more reverence than ever for Apple products – and not just for the obvious reason. Some of us are truly in awe at the efficient simplicity of their design, navigation and functions. If there’s one takeaway there, it’s that technology should never be too complex for the end user. Websites should have clean, vertical internal linking, menus should be easily navigable (two clicks maximum for any page destination), and unnecessary categories should be eliminated (content from those pages can always be moved to a similar category). That brings us to the next element of your SEO strategy – content.

Boost content effectiveness: This is done by encouraging engagement and adding value, with goals that include (for example) community building. How is website authority built these days? The most effective SEO companies do it with traffic and good link building, yes – but more importantly, they are now also doing it by writing content that lends itself to social media sharing. The goal should be to build a sense of community when writing your content, by earning trust and fostering relationships with users. Forget sales for awhile, and focus on a more user-centric goal when writing content. Who was it that said “friendship first”?

As a California SEO company that prides itself on building relationships with clients, Crest Media understands that our clients’ websites have to earn the trust of consumers. That’s why we not only recommend, but follow these SEO strategies for 2012 when we develop outstanding websites for our valued clientele.

About a month ago, we learned that Twitter was in the process of partnering with Japanese social network Mixi to beat out Facebook in Japan. It may work, it may not, but it raises questions regarding what companies – even small businesses, in some cases – can do to use social media for competing internationally.

It also shows us that an international marketing plan shouldn’t merely include Facebook. Facebook is a great marketing tool in the U.S., but is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all social media marketing solution in other countries. What are some foreign social networks worth exploring for American-based businesses looking to compete internationally? Consider the following:

• Mixi (Japan)
• Orkut (Brazil)
• (VKontakte) Russia.
• Qzone and RenRen (China)

And, the list will likely continue to grow. For those who do business in India, there may be other social networks emerging in that nation if Facebook refuses to filter content at the request of the Indian government. With Facebook being essentially outlawed in China, citizens could continue developing more social networks. The possibilities are endless.

As Americans, we tend to think of Facebook as the only social media that really matters. Really, how much more successful are these networks than Facebook in their home countries? One good example concerns the Google-owned network Orkut. Average visitors to Orkut spent 4.3 hours on the site in June 2011, while Brazilian visitors to Facebook spent an average of 1.6 hours in the same month.

To attain optimal social media marketing results, those marketing their businesses internationally will need to identify the top networks in each market and develop plans to adapt to the way those consumers behave online. That’s not an easy feat, but a good social media agency can help. Many firms are getting on the international social media marketing train; if your business is expanding to foreign markets, you may wish to jump on as well.