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Search
Engine Optimization (SEO) Blog
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April 10, 2008
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10 Tips that Your Web Site Needs SEO
If you say "Yes" to any one of these, it's time to have your web site search engine optimized:
- Your site is not on the first 3 pages on Google or Yahoo when you type in your products or services (excluding brand names).
- Few visitors come to your site other than existing clients and prospects you reach through off-line methods.
- Your web site generates few leads for new business.
- When you type your company name into Google or Yahoo, you can't find your company link or there is no description with your link or the description is something you didn't write.
- Your page title (the blue bar at the top of your web page) contains only your company name.
- Your competitors show up better than you on the search engines.
- Your web site hasn't been updated in more than one year.
- Your web site has a flash intro.
- Your site is built in frames.
- You don't know why inbound links are important or what they are.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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August 22, 2007
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An Easy Way to Get Incoming Links
It's no secret that one of the most important factors
in obtaining a high rank position on Google is the quantity
and quality of incoming links.
Quality is determined by the relevance of content on
the site that has a link to your site, plus the overall
rating of that site. A link from a well-ranked, reputable
industry portal, for instance, has more value for your
site's ranking on Google than a link or 10 links from
some poorly rated, unknown directory.
Once you've exhausted the limited list of quality third-party
sites from which you can obtain a link, it's time to
focus on leveraging your own content to create incoming
links. The best way to do that is to publish press releases
or white papers on third-party sites that allow such
uses.
For instance, plastics
and rubber industry portal Polysort.com offers a
press release section that enables companies to post
their company news for the nominal fee of $45 (Polysort
advertising clients can post their news releases for
free).
Adding your news releases or white papers on an industry
portal or article publication site and including your
web site address within the news release is an excellent
way to build incoming links from relevant, well-ranked
sites.
There are several reasons why it's a good idea to post
your company's news releases on an industry portal vs.
your own web site:
| · |
If the industry portal is well-ranked on search
engines, your news release will also likely be indexed
by the search engines, enabling prospects to read
your company news directly from Google, Yahoo or
MSN. |
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Your news release will feed traffic to your site
from the audience that already visits the industry
portal. |
| · |
Your news release will add a valued incoming link
for purposes of having your own web site ranked
by Google. |
For samples of press releases on an industry portal,
visit Polysort's
Press Release section.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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April 2, 2007
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Why it's Time to Get Busy on that Incoming Link Strategy
Where would you like to end up - Heaven or Hell?
That's become a very relevant question with regard to
your web site's position on Google. The search engine
giant has divided the Internet into two categories of
web sites - those that it deems are important and thus
has included in its main index (Heaven) and those that
it has determined are unimportant and has cast off to
its supplemental index (Hell).
The difference between Google's Heaven and Hell is that
sites in Hell will NEVER be seen by a search engine user
on Google.
Google has made a decision that instead of trying to be
the biggest search engine, they want to be the best. As
such, they are actively refining their index to include
only those web pages they feel are important.
Sites that are currently in the Google main index aren't
safe. As the search engine continues to refine its database,
your site could be tagged for dismissal to the supplemental
index for violating some good web development practices
or failure to demonstrate your site's importance in your
industry.
The most important factor - though not the only one --
in proving your site's importance is quality incoming
links. Actually, let's put it this way: The most important
factor to positioning on Google right now in the main
index vs. the supplemental index is QUALITY INCOMING
LINKS!
Rather than rating sites on the total number of incoming
links, Google is measuring the importance of those incoming
links, the type of site they come from and where they
point to on your site. If it finds your site has too many
"spammy" incoming links directly to your home
page, you could be in trouble (i.e. H-E-double hockey
sticks)!
How to determine the status of your site? Check to see
the last time Google spidered your site. If it was more
than two weeks ago, you could be in danger of being assigned
to the supplemental index. If that's the case, you'll
need to get busy on that incoming link strategy - PRONTO!
Fortunately, if your site already has been consigned to
the supplemental index, its fate isn't quite as dire as
really being in Hell. There is the opportunity for Google
redemption, but it will require significant effort.
For assistance in determining your site's status on Google,
contact Pilot Fish at
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill out this form.
Read more about the importance
of link building.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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November 14, 2006
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Take Control of Your Click-Through Rate
You've carefully optimized your web site, researched the
strongest keywords and written compelling content and
tags. But weeks after submitting your site to the search
engines, you notice that the search engines have replaced
your well written prose with unimaginative, lifeless descriptions
that are more likely to cause the average search engine
user to yawn than to click.
How'd that happen?
Usually, the resulting boring company description is the
result of how your company gets listed by the human editors
of the DMOZ directory, which is used as the basis for
many search engines' databases, including Google and Yahoo.
The DMOZ directory is an important tool for ensuring that
your site gets indexed by the major search engines. But
there are several drawbacks. One, it can take months for
your site to be reviewed and listed by the organization's
human editors, all of whom are volunteers. Second, the
intent of the directory is to provide unbiased descriptions
of the links in the directory; therefore, compelling sales
language often gets converted to dry prose.
As a result, you could get stuck with a description on
Google and Yahoo that fails to entice search engine users
to click on your link.
Recently, however, both search engines have adopted coding
(the NOODP tag) that will instruct the search engines'
robots to ignore the DMOZ directory listing and to pick
up instead the description from your site. It doesn't
take long to do, and it could improve search engine traffic
to your site.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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November 1, 2006
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Do You Have Time for SEO?
Are you too busy to embark on a search engine optimization
project?
If you're like the typical business manager, over the
last several years you've seen your workload expand while
the size of your surrounding worker pool diminishes. Company
employees are being asked to assume more and more responsibilities
as businesses seek to reduce overhead and cost.
The result is that important business projects - like
search engine optimization -- which could impact your
company's bottom line, regularly get pushed to the back-burner
while other more immediate needs are addressed.
Fortunately, improving your company's web site's performance
on major search engines is a project that can be managed
without investing an inordinate amount of your already
overbooked time.
Experienced Search Engine Optimization companies are geared
toward helping the busy manager improve their web site
performance without requiring a time-consuming commitment
to the project.
The best SEO companies can manage a successful project
with just a couple hours of your time. Typically, that
will involve just a few steps:
| 1 |
A preliminary interview, usually no more than
an hour long, to gather information needed to develop
the optimized content on your site. |
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2
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Your assistance in providing the SEO company
with sales literature, brochures, white papers or
any other helpful materials that are not already
available on your web site. |
| 3 |
Review of the keywords the SEO firm has selected
based on their research to verify their relevance
to your business and final review of optimized content
written for your site. |
The best SEO firms handle the rest - keyword research,
content development, writing, and SEO implementation.
For the 2-3 hours of your time invested, you can launch
a fully optimized site that begins to generate a significant
amount of traffic and new business leads.
And, that's when it becomes fun to be busy.
Pilot Fish provides complete SEO services that deliver
results without usurping your time. For assistance with
your search engine optimization project, contact John
Inama at
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill
out our form.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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September 6, 2006
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The Meta Tag Flip-Flop
.
In the earliest days of search engine optimization, meta
tags were the ticket to positioning on sites like Google
and Yahoo.
As the search engines became more sophisticated in weeding
out spammy sites that had cheated their way to great positions,
meta tags fell out of favor.
Well, sort of. Despite what you may have heard, meta tags
are still important, but not for the reason you think.
The major search engines still use meta tags, but not
as a primary way to rank web sites. However, the information
contained in meta tags is very important in helping the
search engines create the descriptions they use when they
list your site.
Why is that important? If you've invested in an SEO program
to get better visibility on the search engines, you'll
want to have some control over the message that describes
your site on sites like Google and Yahoo. Control over
that message could mean the difference in whether search
engine users click on your link. If the sites listed above
and below yours have stronger descriptions, you're likely
missing out on a significant amount of traffic.
Take a look at your Google listing. Chances are you have
no idea how Google came up with that site description.
In the case of Google, Yahoo and MSN, your site description
is likely a combination of what's listed in your meta
tags, the content on your site and your DMOZ directory
listing against the actual search query.
Fortunately, there are methods to improve your site descriptions
on each of these sites. It just requires following specified
formulas for each site and recognition that meta tags
really are pretty important.
For a review of your site's meta tag performance, contact
Pilot Fish or call
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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July 6, 1006
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Meta tags - not quite magical but still a must .
Back in the misty, early days of the Internet, you needed
to do just two things to get ranked well on the search
engines:
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Make sure your web site's coding included meta
tags |
2
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Submit the site to the search engines |
. and poof! - your site ranked well on the search engines.
The world of Internet promotion has changed greatly since
those simpler times . a greater number of web sites are
competing for the terms important to your business . the
search engines have become more savvy in rooting out spam
. carefully crafted content is crucial .good linking has
become critical . engines even check to make sure the
coding on your site is done properly.
But properly written meta tags - especially meta description
tags - still play an important role in how well your web
site ranks on the search engines. In fact, this area has
become increasingly important, because the search engines
often view pages that share similar tags as possible spam,
leading to ranking penalties, if not outright banning.
Of course, good tags work best in conjunction with a web
site that does everything else right, too - links, keywords,
text, coding, design.
As part of its search engine optimization services, Pilot
Fish reviews clients' sites to determine the critical
areas - including meta tags -- for improved search engine
performance. For more information, fill
out our form or call
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
.
POSTED
BY BETH EARLE -- click
here to comment
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July 6, 1006
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Selecting the Right Directory
Even with the newest developments in Google's search ranking
methods, being listed in the right directories can still
pay off.
The major engines continue to find value in links from
credible, trusted directories. The best directories often
vet web sites before including their links - the search
engines know this and trust their methods.
But how do you identify a trusted directory? There are
several important indicators to consider:
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Can the search engines follow the link from the
directory to your site? |
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Do the search engines even crawl and index the
directory? |
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Is it a directory or category that's related to
your business? |
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What is the directory's overall quality? |
One way to determine the value of a specific directory
is to see whether the directory appears high enough on
the major search engines to deliver your site additional
qualified traffic. Type in keywords relevant to your business
and see if the directory you're considering is listed.
Of course, the best way to evaluate and identify high-quality
directories is to get the help of a search engine optimization
expert. Pilot Fish has had 10+ years of expertise in working
with directories, and we can help your company select
the best places to list your web site.
Contact us at
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill
out this form.
POSTED
BY BETH EARLE -- click
here to comment |
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May 2006
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If It Were Easy .
If getting top placement on search engines like Google
and Yahoo were easy .
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There wouldn't be a $7.19 billion industry devoted
to search engine marketing; |
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There wouldn't be 97 MILLION web pages on Google
devoted to search engine optimization; |
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There wouldn't be myriad web sites, newsletters,
magazine articles and consultants devoted to the
topic. |
Great search engine placement is determined by how relevant
your site is to the major search engines AND site visitors
against keywords that you and competitors are using to
draw qualified traffic.
It's about keyword selection - if you're a packaging film
manufacturer and you want top placement under the keyword
"film", then you need to be prepared to compete
for the term with not only every other plastics film manufacturer,
but also every web site devoted to movies and filmmaking.
You may need some professional assistance in selecting
the keywords that will get your company the best quality
and quantity of site visitors.
It's about providing useful information - forget slapping
your company brochures online - customers expect more
from your web site and search engines will reward you
for more.
It's about updating your site with additional new content,
and freshening up stale pages.
It's about devoting a portion of your advertising budget
to promote your web site on industry directories and search
engines that can provide a valuable link back to your
site.
It's about writing white papers and technical articles
and submitting them to relevant sites that can give you
a valuable link back.
The days of tweaking a few invisible codes to soar to
the top of Google are gone - real search engine optimization
requires a commitment in time and money for long-lasting
effect.
For more information about achieving higher placement
on search engines, call
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill
out our form.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment |
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April 18, 2006
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Comprehensive SEO strategy can yield long-term results
With Internet search engines ever changing the way they
index and prioritize search results, developing a strong-performing
web site that consistently draws high quantity and quality
visitors can feel like drawing graffiti on a moving train.
But well-constructed web sites designed with search engines
in mind can perform long-term if you take a comprehensive
approach to Search Engine Optimization.
This includes:
-- Researching your company's "Performance
Keywords" to determine what terms your customers
and prospects are most likely to use on search engines
to find companies that offer your product or service.
-- Developing content that is both search-engine
friendly and deep in useful information to prospects.
-- Committing to update your site on
a regular basis with meaty information that will maintain
your search engine position.
-- Creating a professional design that
communicates "market leadership" to prospects,
yet avoids "over-designing" that can hamper
search engine indexing.
-- Supporting search engine positioning efforts
with a proactive linking strategy for maximum Internet
visibility.
Pilot Fish has created a web site design and performance
model that uniquely leverages four basic elements to support
a performance-orientated, cost-effective marketing strategy:
1
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Design and content that effectively targets Internet
search engines |
2
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Supplemental promotion to support your company's
industry visibility |
3
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Real-time visitor feedback reports and performance
analysis tools |
4
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Proactive personal site analysis and performance
reviews |
You've already made the commitment to Internet marketing
- now's the time to get the most out of that investment.
For assistance in building or redesigning your company's
web site for strong search engine performance and lead
generation, call
877-799-9994
or fill
out this short form.
POSTED
BY JOHN INAMA -- click
here to comment |
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April 3, 2006
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The Secret to SEO
A prospect with whom we met recently to discuss Search
Engine Optimization asked, "What's the secret to
high placement on the major search engines?"
Talk about a loaded question. I found it difficult to
answer because there really is no ONE secret; there are
many attributes that a search engine considers when ranking
one site against the thousands or millions of other web
pages that use the same keywords.
To help this person wrap his mind around the concept,
I gave the simplest answer I could muster that focused
on the primary aspects: "There are a number of elements
that the search engines consider to be important, including:
-- Relevant content - The content of
your web site needs to be written with carefully selected
keywords that will help a search engine interpret your
site as being relevant to a user looking for your products
or services.
-- Relevant incoming links - Which sites link
to you and why they link to you is important to search
engines. Having more relevant incoming links than your
competitors will increase your chances of high search
engine placement.
-- Search-engine friendly coding - How
the site is structured and how it is coded plays a direct
role in the ability of search engines to spider the site
easily."
Executing these three elements requires attention to a
lot of small details. That's essentially the secret. There's
no one silver bullet that will cure all non-performing
sites - it's attention to each aspect in combination that
gives your site the best chance to shine on the search
engines.
For more information, call
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill
out our contact form.
POSTED
BY ANGELA CHARLES -- click
here to comment |
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February 27, 2006
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The
Do's and Don'ts of SEO
Your company wants to improve its position on the major
search engines and has decided to turn this project over
to an SEO firm. Great! But how do you evaluate the qualifications
of the myriad companies that claim to understand SEO,
when all offer varied services at all sorts of price levels.
We've developed a list of do's and don'ts to help you
determine the right folks with whom to trust your company's
SEO project and issues to keep in mind.
| Do |
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Ask potential SEO vendors for references, and
check them; |
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Look for an SEO firm that will research appropriate
keyword phrases for best results; |
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Involve your SEO firm early on if you're in the
midst of a site redesign; |
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Allow your SEO vendor to help develop good, quality
content; |
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Ask your SEO vendor if they have a link strategy
in place; |
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Have patience. If you're looking for a quick fix,
go with paid placement. |
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| Don't |
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Go with the SEO vendor that "promises"
a No. 1 position or first-page placement; |
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Participate in offers promising to submit your
site to the search engines; |
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Go with an SEO firm that offers you a quick fix;
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Develop your site in frames; |
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Develop your site entirely in Flash; |
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Use hidden links or text; |
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Expect your site optimization to deliver results
on a deadline; |
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Change content on optimized pages without consulting
your SEO firm. |
For assistance with your SEO project, contact John Inama
at
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill
out our contact form.
POSTED
BY JOHN INAMA -- click
here to comment |
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February 21, 2006
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Use Press Releases to Improve Search Engine Positioning
In addition to having good, quality content on your web
site, search engines have increasingly given credence
to the number of incoming links a site has.
One way to increase the number of high-quality incoming
links to your site is to publish articles or news releases
on third-party web sites. The advantage of doing this
is that your white paper or news release will provide
keyword-rich content that will be linked back to your
site, thereby establishing the connection for search engines
that your site is of value for those particular keywords.
Additionally, people who otherwise may never have found
you may view your white paper or news release on these
third-party sites.
To find third-party web sites that will publish your white
papers or news releases, start within your industry. Portal
sites that cater to specific industries oftentimes allow
companies to contribute to the content on their sites.
For instance, the plastics and rubber industry portal
Polysort enables
its advertising clients to publish their news releases
for free.
Using newswire services to disseminate your news releases,
such as PRNewswire, is another way to locate appropriate
venues for your material.
For assistance with your SEO project, contact John Inama
at
877-799-9994 ext. 2104
or fill
out our contact form.
POSTED
BY ANGIE CHARLES -- click
here to comment
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February 3, 2006
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Build Content Driven by Performance Keywords
When search engines first started to make their
impact on web site traffic, achieving a high ranking on
major search engines was a cinch - metatags. Put them
on your site, and you were in like Flynn.
Today, it's not that simple. For some search engines,
metatags are just one of a number of critical elements
that search engine algorithms take into account. For other
search engines, metatags don't matter at all. Search engines
are much more sophisticated at relating the content of
a web site to a user's keyword search.
Consider the frustration you oftentimes have when searching
for specific types of sites. It's often that you find
unrelated results on searches and may have to try several
times to tweak search terms that yield the results you
seek. The concept of using Performance Keywords to drive
your search engine optimization strategy is to eliminate
the frustration of people looking for your site. They
shouldn't have to keep tweaking their search terms to
find you. Knowing which keywords to use on your site and
how to use them is vital to achieving not only better
search engine positioning, but pull-through traffic that
will generate leads.
Before undertaking a search engine optimization project,
it's important to conduct a Performance Keyword Analysis
to determine the best keywords under which your site would
perform. This analysis not only will review the content
of your site but also that of your primary competitors.
It also will involve reviewing current search engine performance
and analyzing which keywords Internet users really use
when seeking sites like yours.
The result will be the unveiling of your company's Performance
Keywords - those terms that will generate the best quality
and quantity traffic when optimized on your site. Once
that's complete, your search engine optimization firm
can develop content that leverages those Performance Keywords
to improve your site's search engine positioning.
To find out whether your company would benefit from a
Performance Keyword Analysis, contact Pilot Fish at
877-799-9994
or fill
out our contact form.
POSTED
BY BETH EARLE -- click here to
comment
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Read more about search engine optimization on Pilot Fish President Angela Charles' blog: KISS SEO (Search Engine Optmization) & Web Design
See Pilot Fish on Blog Top Sites
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