Author Archives: Josh Laughtland

About Josh Laughtland

Founder/CEO

Lucky Peak Sunset

Our Latest Success! VisitIdaho.org Website Migration Case Study

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VisitIdaho.org
 
We were recently able to help migrate Idaho’s most popular travel and tourism website to a new design without any loss of search engine authority/popularity. Which, just happened to be our client’s primary concern.

Challenges

  • Preserving the authority for almost eight thousand landing pages with a considerably smaller website (7,706 pages to 830 pages).
  • Developing an effective strategy to coincide with the website’s fixed migration launch date.

Goals

The primary objective of the project was to simply minimize organic search engine authority/popularity loss, given the short time frame and the migration of thousands of landing pages.

Not long ago, we helped AgriBeef migrate Snake River Farms to a new website with resounding results. However, we had more time ahead of the launch date and a much smaller website to deal with.

Results

Despite the challenges, the end result for VisitIdaho.org was much like that of AgriBeef. Not only were we able to successfully preserve authority/popularity, we increased it. And, fixed a number of long standing issues during the process.
 
Google Analytics – Website Visitors from Search Engines Before and After

Google Analytics Graph
 
Google Search Console – Eliminated Long Standing Crawling Errors

Google Search Console
 
Google Search Console – Eliminated New and Old Indexation Errors

Google Search Console

Additional SEO Wins

  • Before launch, there were 672 redirection scripts in place. After launch, we helped bring that number down to 277.
  • We completely eliminated 31 server errors.
  • We also tested and optimized mobile friendliness, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, SSL/HTTPS and structured data.

Please contact us to learn more about domain and website migration services we offer.

SEO Service

23 Essential Google Tools for Businesses

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giconThe below 23 free tools, apps and software downloads are provided by Google to help businesses, marketers and developers with SEO and Digital Advertising efforts.
 
 

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Ad Grants
 
Google Ad Grants
Nonprofit organizations can apply to receive $10,000 per month of AdWords advertising. That’s A LOT of free exposure despite minor campaign limitations.
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AdWords Best Practices
 
AdWords Best Practices
Google’s own best practices guide makes an excellent reference tool when navigating the ever changing AdWords landscape.
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AdWords Keyword Tool
 
Google Keyword Tool
Find out how many people search Google using keywords and phrases related to your business. Research and discover new ideas.

Install Android App
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AdSense
 
Google AdSense
Still one of the easiest ways to monetize your website and/or blog. AdSense displays ads on your website, blog or app.

Dig even deeper – get the Chrome extension.

Install Android App
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Alerts
 
Google Alerts
Create customized alerts and receive email or RSS notification of freshly indexed content that matches or relates to the type of alert set.
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Analytics
 
Google Analytics
A powerful and robust tool that provides valuable insight about your website’s visitors.

Dig even deeper – get the Chrome extension.

Install Android App
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Cloud Print
 
Google Cloud Print
Connects your printers to the cloud enabling control from any web-connected device like your smartphone.
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Correlate
 
Google Correlate
Compare and correlate search patterns with real-world trends. Companion to Google Trends.
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Custom Search Engine
 
Google Custom Search Engine
DIY Site Search. Use Google to power and/or monetize search on one or more of your websites.
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Display Benchmarks
 
AdWords Display Benchmarks
A useful tool designed to compare AdWords display campaigns with the rest of the industry. See how your campaigns stack-up performance wise.
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Domains
 
Google Domains
Register and manage domain names – includes FREE PRIVATE registration and one free domain.
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Mobile-Friendly Test
 
Mobile Friendly Test
Analyze your website to see if it passes Google’s mobile-friendly test. Fear not if your page doesn’t pass, corrective tips are provided.
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My Business
 
Google My Business
Verify and manage your business footprint across Google Search, Maps and Google+. The cornerstone for your business’s presence on Google.

Install Android App
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Primer
 
Google Primer for Android
Quick and easy interactive marketing lessons from Google on your smartphone. Learn about valuable marketing concepts whenever you’ve got a spare 5 minutes.
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Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)
 
Google Search Console
Connect websites to learn about potential issues that deal with security, indexation, structured data, links and mobile friendliness.
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Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
 
Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
A 32 page PDF containing general information and guidelines for optimizing websites for search engines.
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Sites
 
Google Sites
Quickly build (one click), manage, share and deploy websites and web pages with ease. Remember Geocities? It’s like that, but a little fancier.
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Structured Data Testing Tool
 
Structured Data Testing Tool
Test your website’s structured data (knowledge graph, ratings, reviews and other markup) to make sure they are formatted correctly.
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Think With Google
 
Think with Google
High quality repository of marketing resources featuring consumer trends, marketing insights, case studies, industry research and creative inspiration.
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Trends
 

View real-time trends and explore past, present and estimated future trends for popular topics, searches and YouTube videos. Plus – embeddable charts!
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Trusted Store
 
Google Trusted Stores
Ecommerce much? Become a Google Trusted Store and get seller ratings displayed in Google Shopping and AdWords.
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Voice
 
Google Voice
Enhance the capabilities of your current phone regardless of carrier with a new number for yourself or business.

Install Android App
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Web Designer
 
Google Web Designer
Professional grade HTML5-based web design software available for free download.
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There are a lot more than 23 Google tools for businesses available. Please comment below with your own favorites!

Jtree Light Side

Geeks Rejoice – You Can Now Star Wars Optimize Your Google Experience

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Google recently teamed up with Lucasfilm and Disney for the Choose Your Side Star Wars experience. Where your favorite Google products become force optimized based on which side you choose, light or dark. Choose Wisely.

The Force is Hidden Within

In addition to skinning your Google apps with Star Wars-themed visuals, delicious easter eggs have also been carefully placed throughout. Check out your Google Maps Street View marker or open up a new Chrome tab to find the first of many.

And, there’s this cryptic tweet from Google:

 
Try searching Google for “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away,”.
 

SEO Character Limits

Quick Guide to SEO Character Limits

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It’s easy to forget the latest incarnation of how many characters for which SEO elements to follow when forging new content for a website or blog. The following SEO character limit guidelines are designed to help with optimizing static website content and blog post elements for search engines.

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SEO Character Limits

Page Titles: 50-60 characters

Meta Descriptions: 160 characters

Meta Keywords: Omit/do not use

H1+ Headings: 70 characters

Image ALT Text: 100 characters

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SEO Character Limits Explained

Page Title Character Limit: 60

Page titles are typically not visible on the site itself and can usually be found in the browser title bar or tab. Page titles are often used by search engines as the title of the result snippet and play a significant role in search engine rankings. Page titles over 60 characters risk truncation and even replacement by the search engine.

Pro Tip! Shorter page titles tend to get more clicks.

Meta Description Character Limit: 160

Meta descriptions are also not visible on the page and will most likely be used in search engine result snippets. Although meta descriptions are no longer used by Google as a ranking signal they can affect search result click-through ratios.

Pro Tip! Don’t worry about optimizing meta descriptions for keyphrases, focus on usability – getting them to click!

Meta Keywords: Just NO

Meta keywords are no longer a weighted search engine ranking signal. The use of them is strongly discouraged.

Pro Tip! Omit or remove all instances of meta keywords site-wide.

H1+ Heading Character Limit: 70

While heading tags don’t carry as much search engine ranking signal weight as they used to, they remain an important on-page SEO element. Headings above 70 characters can look sloppy under most circumstances. The 70 character limit is merely a recommended limit, as we presently are not aware of any imposed by search engines.

Pro Tip! Avoid duplicating headings with other headings or page titles and focus on using headings relevant to page content.

Image ALT Text Character Limit: 100

Even though most industry experts agree ALT text should be no longer than 120 characters, even more concur that image ALT text should be short but sweet. Ideally making use of 5 or 6 words that are relative to the image file name as well as page content. Keeping in mind that search engine signal weight is assigned to ALT text from left to right, significantly diminishing after the 5th or 6th word. Well optimized images can also help improve search engine rankings for image search results.

Pro Tip! Make sure to avoid duplication and focus efforts on images that are displayed in the ATF (above the fold) portion of the page.

Additional On-Page SEO Considerations

Filenames: The name of the page and/or directory and image file name should relate to the page title, headings and content.

Text: The amount of text/page varies based on content type and intent. Use short, easy to read and understand headings, sentences and paragraphs. Somewhere between 300 and 500 words is often a good place to start.

Internal Linking: Not menu navigation, sidebars or footers mind you, but including ATF links on pages or blog posts that lead to internal landing pages. Internal linking helps search engines identify important pages – landing pages. It can also dilute the authority of a given page if not used appropriately.