SEO Over-Optimization?

Josh Mallard on May 9, 2012

Keeping you in the loop on some interesting SEO changes from Google; we’ve got your back Jack.

Google search/spam guru, Matt Cutts, recently threw the SEO world into an upheaval when he said…

So all those people who have sort have been doing, for lack of a better word, “over optimization,” or overly doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little more level.

This is related to the so-called Penguin update to Google’s search algorithm that happened on April 24, 2012.

Should you be concerned?

If we have been guiding your SEO, you will be just fine. Here’s why… 

  • We have always emphasized user-centric SEO – if your content looks spammy, you are doing it wrong
  • One of the main purposes of our SEO is to accurately convey to machines and users what your content/site are all about
  • We never engage in shady or low-quality link-building tactics and those are part of what is getting hit hardest

This update may actually help many of you as it will level the playing field some.

Further Reading:

(are you a fan of us on Facebook? Like our page to keep up-to-date on new changes in the Web industry)

Looking for a web developer?

Josh Mallard on April 18, 2012

Working email support for a popular WordPress theme developer, I’ve come across a lot of inexperienced design firms that promote themselves as “experts”.  With advances in technology, the entry into the web development industry has never been easier.  A reality that has created many opportunists trying to make a quick buck.  Although it is easier to become a “web developer”, it is now much harder to be a good web developer.

This being the case, not all young web developers are bad.  There are a lot of quality web developers that can provide you a great service at a great price.  Naturally, everyone must start somewhere and we can’t condemn all newcomers as scam artists.  But, how do you determine whether someone is a quality developer or an opportunist looking for a quick buck?

A Couple Things to Keep in Mind

A single person can NOT be an “expert” at everything needed for your web strategy. 

If you are reviewing a freelancer that claims to be an “expert” at web development, web design, branding, social media, inbound marketing, and analytics… RUN AWAY!  It is a full-time job just staying up to date on one of these topics, this means that anyone claiming to be an expert at them all is most likely a hack at them all.

But this is where the trade off of cost and reward come into play.  To truly have experts in all of these areas manage your web strategy you will be spending a minimum of $20,000.  So, knowing that you only have a $2,000 – $5,000 budget for your web presence, you must determine what will get you the most bang for your buck.  Just keep in mind, people that promise everything will most likely leave you with nothing.

Note: LimeCuda has a team of experts, each well-qualified in their particular niche. Each person also understands the big picture and how the different niches must work together.

Why not get some referrals?

No matter how new someone is to the industry, if they are charging you, they should have some referrals.  It is a common thing for people to request referrals from someone providing them with a service.  This is a big step for your business, don’t hesitate to find out about the experience others have had with a certain developer.

Review their portfolio

Take a look at the websites in their portfolio and keep a couple of things in mind:

  1. What kind of businesses do they serve?
  2. Imagine yourself as that business’s customer, is the site simple and intuitive? Does it draw you in and make you want to do business with them?

If the answer to these questions is no, you might want to look at other developers.

Are you currently looking for a web developer?

If you are currently looking for someone to handle your web project, we happily invite you to take a look at:

  1. Meet our team
  2. What our clients have to say about us
  3. See some samples of our work

We would love to hear from you!

 

Philosophy of Communication, A Look Inside the LimeCuda Culture

Josh Mallard on March 28, 2012

Aj the dog, driving on his way to workThe culture a company forms for itself has massive impact on the work produced.

Stealing this unashamedly from my dad… we try very hard to be “fun, friendly, and helpful.”   This manifests itself in: the calls we have with clients,  our state-of-mind while at our desks, and how we communicate in email.

Life is hard enough, so we always try to keep a positive and upbeat attitude. You wouldn’t think, so but creating or transforming a company’s web presence can be stressful and high pressure. People entrust their businesses to us all the time; being alert and thorough is key. However, in order to not let this responsibility turn us into uptight, stressed-out, robots, we mix a healthy dose of fun, humor, and joy into our work.

Don’t be mistaken, this surface casualness is how we keep our work full of joy, meaning, and we don’t end up in padded rooms scribbling “Die Internet Explorer, Die!” We are still professionals underneath the jeans and un-tucked dress shirts.

Yada yada yada, so what do we mean?

Phone Calls

If we chat on the phone, we try to be direct and not waste your time, while being fun and interesting people. I do far too much rubbing in the face of my northern clients, the warm weather and sun that I suffer through. (sorry!)

Posts / Content

When we interact in the online world with Social Media, mailing lists, website content, and blog posts, we may be more casual and entertaining than you are used to. And that is exactly why… we would put you to sleep at your keyboard if everything from LimeCuda was “what you are used to”.  Have you ever seen the face of someone who fell asleep on their keyboard? It ain’t pretty.Guy falling asleep on keybord

Emailslimecuda-email-icon

We all get faaaaaar too many of them. We feel your pain. In our correspondence we try to be to-the-point and not waste your valuable time. You also might get some humor. We’re also certainly no strangers to the emoticons like: 🙂 or 😉 and if you are a cheekish client maybe even a 😛  (don’t be alarmed if you see an lol, only 30% of the time are we laughing at you)

Why do we engage in such frivolities? Experience. There is a very real danger when communicating with someone online as you immediately lose the  90% of communication that is non-verbal. By adding a smiley face we are trying to bring back some of the meaning and intent that is lost in written communication. This isn’t us being goofy, this is us trying to make sure you know that we aren’t mad or frustrated.

Note: in case you weren’t aware, ALL CAPS is the online equivalent of screaming, so unless you are very mad or very excited about something, don’t use it. Don’t leave us guessing what you meant when you said “THE FONT IS WAY TOO SMALL” 🙂

Now it’s your turn… Any tips you want to share for communicating online? Have a different style philosophy? Please share in the comments!

Georgia E-Commerce Taxes by County (Zip Code Breakdown)

Josh Mallard on March 13, 2012

This post deals specifically with e-commerce tax issues in the state of Georgia

Although web sales are generally thought to be non-taxable, if your client has a physical location they will have to pay sales tax for all of their in-state sales.  Not only are there state taxes to process, there are additional county-based local taxes which have to be accounted for in your e-commerce solution.  I know this sounds like a huge pain, and it somewhat is, but it is a necessary thing to consider in order to ensure that your client does not receive any unnecessary headaches while running their new e-commerce website.

There is however a kink to this process when considering online sales.  Local taxes are county based.  When was the last time you saw a “County” line on a checkout form? Since it is rather unconventional to include a “County” line on your checkout forms, these rates are typically calculated based on the zip codes provided when customers are purchasing items.

SPOILER ALERT!  The remainder of this article deals specifically with Sales Tax issues for the state of Georgia

Georgia Tax Rates for Online Sales

In reviewing this situation for a current project we are working on for a company based in Georgia, we decided to add a 7% tax for all items purchased from within the state of Georgia (4% state tax + 3% Local Tax).  Since there are only 9 counties with a lower local tax rate, we then determined (conservatively) the zip codes for all the counties that had a lower Local Tax rate (2% rather than the traditional 3%).  We then created a negative tax rate criteria for all orders from these zip codes, so when someone made a purchase from a zip code that fell within the lower rate it would reduce the tax amount by 1% (2% in the case of Whitfield County since they only have a 1% local tax bringing the total tax rate to 5%).  We’ve provided a breakdown below of all the Counties and associated zip codes with the lower rates.

Counties & Associated Zip Codes with 2% Tax Rate

Bibb County

  • 31201
  • 31204
  • 31206
  • 31216

Burke County

  • 30456
  • 30830

Cherokee County

  • 30114
  • 30115
  • 30183
  • 30188
  • 30189

Cobb County

  • 30008
  • 30060
  • 30062
  • 30064
  • 30066
  • 30067
  • 30068
  • 30069
  • 30080
  • 30082
  • 30106
  • 30126
  • 30144
  • 30152

Fayette County

  • 30214
  • 30215
  • 30269
  • 30290

Glynn County

  • 31520
  • 31522
  • 31523
  • 31525
  • 31527

Greene County

  • 30642
  • 30678

Gwinnett County

  • 30017
  • 30024
  • 30044
  • 30045
  • 30047
  • 30071
  • 30092
  • 30093
  • 30096

Counties and Associated Zip Codes with 1% Tax Rate

Whitfield County

  • 30710
  • 30720
  • 30721
  • 30740

 

We hope this helps you and maybe saves you a little time!  If you happen to be looking into an e-commerce solution for your own company, we would love to talk with you!  Contact us and we’ll be in touch with you shortly.

 

How to Set the Nameservers in GoDaddy

Josh Mallard on July 13, 2011

Nameservers are like signs that point the way from your domain to your hosting. I’ve done a quick screencast showing you how to change nameservers in GoDaddy.

LimeCuda uses these nameservers:
NS1.LIMECUDA.COM
NS2.LIMECUDA.COM

Configuring WordPress SEO Plugin on Posts + Pages

Josh Mallard on May 27, 2011

Watch as I quickly go over how to use the powerful WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast on my posts and pages.

We’ve tried many SEO plugins but none are as robust or perfect as this one by Yoast.

Learn how to use it when editing your WordPress Posts + Pages:

I’ll leave you with a couple thoughts (some were in the video)

SEO Title

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  • Highest value keywords should be towards front of tag
  • Having a longer title with many keywords dilutes the strength of each keyword
  • Use separators like: | – > <
  • The default auto-generation on global settings page. I use %%title%% or %%title%% | %%sitename%%

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SEO Description

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  • Has little SEO value but terms the user searches get bolded
  • Needs to entice the searcher to click thru

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Focus Keyword

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  • Only for your own internal use
  • Only put one keyword/phrase
  • Use this to remind you of where you can naturally use your keyword

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Other

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  • Use /%postname%/ for your permalinks (Settings>>Permalinks) or if concerned about speed and having many posts: /%post_id%/%postname%/
  • This plugin also generates XML sitemaps that you can submit to Google Webmaster Tools
  • Download plugin

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Have questions? Send us a message or comment below!

Questions You Need to Ask Your Web Designer / Developer!

Josh Mallard on July 22, 2010

Christina, an awesome SEO from the fantastic internet marketing firm, LunaMetrics, just wrote a really fun and poignant post on questions to ask a web designer.

Sign #1 That Your Web Designer Knows Bubkus About SEO:

During the web designers sales pitch, you say “I’m concerned about the Search Engines’ ability to access and properly index my site. Consequently, I’d like to know what kind of code you’ll be using to render the major design elements of my site.” and they answer:
a. Flash
b. Javascript
c. It doesn’t matter
d. I am be coding very well, it’s ok.

Read the rest…

5 Signs Your Web Designer Knows Nothing About SEO

Search Engine Optimization for Beginners – Learn SEO

Josh Mallard on July 17, 2010

As a small business owner you often will want to learn things in order to give your business the best chance to succeed. SEO is one of those things that can with some effort you can understand and grow your traffic.

If you read only one thing about SEO, read this guide from SEOmoz. They are the most highly respected SEO firm and educator. If you want more, read this 3 part series from Hongkiat.

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Remember that SEO alone won’t make you succeed. What SEO gives is traffic. That traffic must be the right kind of traffic and you must be able to convert that traffic.

WordPress 3.0 released. Upgrades on the way.

Josh Mallard on June 17, 2010

Quick note that the latest version of WordPress has been released.

For our clients who are running WordPress look to be upgraded in the next week or two.

We have been running the 3.0 alpha, beta, and release candidates on the LimeCuda site for a few months now and haven’t had any real issues and love the new features.

Only minor compatibility issue so far is with the Page Management Dropdown plugin not working but that is minor and just a minor backend tweak we like to use.

F or Z Pattern in Web Design?

Josh Mallard on May 27, 2010

Ever notice that you read things differently online than you do with offline reading material?

Usability experts have traditionally seen the way people scan a web page as going in a “Z” shape with the end being a Call To Action.

Z pattern reading

The latest research using eyetracking and heatmaps shows that this may actually be more in the shape of an “F”.

 

F pattern reading

While this is just a guideline for how people scan, it is a good idea to keep it in mind when placing your CTAs for highest conversion.

Takeaways

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  • Use titles
  • Bold important text
  • Use lists

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Remember, people do not read everything you write on a page. Stick the most important information early in the paragraphs.

…because people read differently, you have to write differently. ~ Jakob Nielson

Resources:

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