Is your website’s advertising getting in the way of the search engines?

Is your website’s advertising getting in the way of the search engines?

September 7, 2012 3:05 pm By InOnline Marketing

Recently I googled “Tire Business” as a test to see how a few major publishers in the tire industry showed up in Google Searches.  I did this with a hidden agenda.  I know that most online publishers sell advertising on their websites and I also know that many of them don’t take into account the SEO implications.

The three biggest online advertising mistakes most publishers make are:

1.  Not correcting the default meta description on a pop up ad for the homepage.  While ideally, from an SEO perspective, pop ups are just bad.  The worst part is by default, the meta description on the pop up page which is being indexed by Google is “Skip this ad.”  Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the first thing a potential reader sees when Googling “Tire Business” to be “Skip this ad.”

While the meta description is not algorithmically important to the search engines, it plays a critical role in conveying to a searcher what they will find on your website.

2. Using aggregated RSS newsfeeds.  To fill content on the homepage, publishers who lack the resources to write lots of stories use syndicated feeds from other news sources such as Associated Press.  Some use services such as Twitter Trending to scrape news based on topic.   There are two major SEO issues with this practice.

1.  News feeds produce duplicate content because there are tens of thousands of other websites using the same feeds and the search engines like to have one authority.

2. Publishers run the risk of actually having a link to a competitor’s page show up when scraping news by topic.  Sometimes that’s not a big deal, but if

About Matt Ross

Matt Ross is the President and Founder of DigitalHipster Inc. est. 2009.  Matt and his Wife Wendy have two adult sons. He's a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Alumni, a member of The Society of Martin Scholars at The University of Akron, and an active member in a few book clubs. When he's not deep in code and cranking music, or trying to keep up with the latest Google Algorithm, Matt is gardening, mountain biking, off-roading in his Jeep, writing for fun or being a guinea pig for his wife's yoga instruction. He lives and works in Highland Square Akron, Ohio. For the 15 years prior to launching DigitalHipster Inc.  Matt worked as a Senior Advertising Account Executive and Integrated Sales Director for major television stations and newspapers in the Akron, Cleveland, Phoenix and Las Vegas markets. He has successfully planned, sold and executed millions of dollars in innovative multi-platform advertising campaigns consisting of television commercials, web video, content integration, multi-carrier mobile WAP sites, print ads, and radio. Matt says, "During my years working in broadcast and print media, I learned how to gather real-time advertising response rates and develop cost-effect creative that works for my clients.  By working for over a decade on the sales side with millions of dollars of advertising revenue, I learned how to spot bargains for my clients and see what worked and what didn't. We're not just a team of graphic designers, or artists that take chances with your ad budget. We have real advertising experience across all the major advertising channels."