StratusPointIT, formerly ComputerSupport.com, is an end to end technology solutions provider, a highly awarded outsourced IT company that combines expertise, creativity and versatility for your success. Our solutions help businesses migrate to the cloud, improve operations on-premise through managed IT services and nationwide 24/7 onsite IT support. Here is what you should expect:
Full IT support for small and medium businesses – We deliver both remote and on-site support all across USA.
Proactive IT support services – Our staff has the necessary experience and knowledge to eliminate IT related threats before they become problems.
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Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.
One of our most popular articles of all time is a post entitled SEO Basics: 8 Essentials When Optimizing Your Site. It still does the business for us in terms of traffic, however it was first published in April 2013, so you can treat this as its long overdue and expanded update.
What is SEO?
Quite simply, SEO is the umbrella term for all the methods you can use to ensure the visibility of your website and its content on search engine results pages (SERPs).
The methods vary from technical practices you can achieve behind the scenes on your website (we tend to refer to this as ‘on-page SEO’) to all the promotional ’off-page’ approaches you can use to raise your site’s visibility (link-building, social media marketing).
For the purpose of this article, when we talk about visibility, we mean how high up the SERP your website appears for certain search terms in the ‘organic’ results. Organic results refer to those that appear naturally on the page, rather than in the paid-for sections…
Building a strong site architecture and providing clear navigation will help search engines index your site quickly and easily. This will also, more importantly, provide visitors with a good experience of using your site and encourage repeat visits. It’s worth considering that Google is increasingly paying attention to user experience.
When it comes to how much traffic is driven by search engines to your website, the percentage is substantial, and perhaps the clearest indicator of the importance of SEO.
In 2014, Conductor suggested 64% of all web traffic comes from organic search, compared to 2% from social, 6% from paid search, 12% direct and 15% from other referral sources.
This tallies with our own data, with approximately 70-75% of SEW traffic coming from organic.
Resources
Of all organic traffic, in 2015 it was found that Google accounts for more than 90% of global organic search traffic. So obviously you need a strong presence on Google SERPs, but how strong?
Well, according to this study from Advanced Web Ranking (which I’ve trotted out before when discussing how to dominate Google) shows that on the first SERP, the top five results account for 67.60% of all clicks and the results from six to 10 account for only 3.73%.
It’s therefore vital that your site appears in the top five results.
How are you going to achieve this? With the following tips, which I’ve split into two categories: what search engines are looking for and… drum roll… what they’re not looking for.
What are search engines looking for?
1) Relevancy
Search engines try to provide the most relevant results to a searcher’s query, whether it’s a simple answer to the question “how old is Ryan Gosling?” (the answer of which Google will likely provide without you having to leave the SERP) to more complicated queries such as “what is the best steak restaurant nearest to me?”
How search engines provide these results is down to their own internal algorithms, which we’ll probably never truly determine, but there are factors that you can be certain will influence these results and they’re all based around relevancy… For instance: a searcher’s location, their search history, time of day/year, etc.
2) The quality of your content
Do you regularly publish helpful, useful articles, videos or other types of media that are popular and well produced? Do you write for actual human beings rather than the search engine itself? Well, you should. Latest research from Searchmetrics on ranking factors indicates that Google is moving further towards longer-form content that understands a visitor’s intention as a whole, instead of using keywords based on popular search queries to create content.
Basically, stop worrying about keywords and focus on the user experience.
How quickly your webpages load is increasingly becoming a differentiator for search engines. Google may soon start labelling results that are hosted on Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) so this may possibly be the ‘mobilegeddon’ of 2016. Speaking of which…
5) Cross-device compatibility
Is your website and its content equally optimised for any given screen size or device? Bear in mind that Google has stated that responsive design is its preferred method of mobile optimisation.
6) Internal linking
We’ve talked about the benefits of ensuring your site has clear and easy-to-use navigation, but there’s also a practice that editors and writers can carry out when publishing articles to help push traffic around the site and that may lead to higher trust signal
s for Google: internal linking. (See what we did there.)
Internal linking has many advantages:
It provides your audience with further reading options. As long as they’re relevant and you use clear anchor text (the clickable highlighted words in any give link). This can help reduce your bounce rates.
It helps to improve your ranking for certain keywords. If we want this article to rank for the term ’SEO basics’ then we can begin linking to it from other posts using variations of similar anchor text. This tells Google that this post is relevant to people searching for ‘SEO basics’. Some experts recommend varying your anchor text pointing to the same page as Google may see multiple identical uses as ‘suspicious’.
It helps Google crawl and index your site. Those little Googlebots that are sent out to fetch new information on your site will have a better idea of how useful and trustworthy your content is, the more they crawl your internal links.
7) Authority
An authority website is a site that is trusted by its users, the industry it operates in, other websites and search engines. Traditionally a link from an authority website is very valuable, as it’s seen as a vote of confidence. The more of these you have, and the higher quality content you produce, the more likely your own site will become an authority too.
However as the aforementioned Searchmetrics research suggests, year-on-year correlations between backlinks and rankings are decreasing, so perhaps over time ‘links’ may not be as important to SEO as we once thought.
There’s a good argument raging in the comments to this recent piece on links as a marketing KPI, which offers some diverse views on the subject.
8) Meta descriptions and title tags
Having a meta description won’t necessarily improve your ranking on the SERP, but it is something you should definitely use before publishing an article as it can help increase your chances of a searcher clicking on your result.
The meta description is the short paragraph of text that appears under your page’s URL in the search results, it’s also something you should have complete control of in your CMS.
Here it is in WordPress:
Write succinctly (under 156 characters is good), clearly and make sure it’s relevant to your headline and the content of the article itself.
Title tags are used to tell search engines and visitors what your site is about in the most concise and accurate way possible. The keywords in your title tag show up highlighted in search engine results (if the query uses those keywords), as well as in your browser tab and when sharing your site externally.
You can write your own title tag inside the
area of your site’s HTML:
Example Title
You should use a few accurate keywords describing the page as well as your own brand name. Only use relevant keywords though, and the most important thing to consider is that although you are formatting for search engines, you should write for humans.
You can make your search results appear more attractive by adding Schema markup to the HTML of your pages. This can help turn your search results into a rich media playground, adding star-ratings, customer ratings, images, and various other bits of helpful info…
Schema is also the preferred method of markup by most search engines including Google, and it’s fairly straightforward to use. For more information, check out our handy guide to Schema.
10) Properly tagged images
Many people forget to include the alt attribute when they upload images to their content, but this is definitely something you shouldn’t overlook because Google cannot ‘see’ your images, but can ‘read’ the alt text.
By describing your image in the alt text as accurately as possible it will increase the chances of your images appearing in Google Image search.
It will also improve the accessibility of your site for people using ‘screen reader’ software.
11) Evergreen content
Instead of peppering the internet with a rash of ‘quick win’ news stories with little insight, why not publish more evergreen content.
More thoughtful, helpful and practical-advice based articles can lead to huge long-term wins in terms of driving traffic and occupying highly visible positions in the SERPs.
You should use sub-directory root domains (searchenginewatch.com/category/seo) instead of sub-domains (searchenginewatch.category.seo.com) as this is better for your overall site architecture.
You should also stay away from hyphens (search-engine-watch.com) and alternative Top-level domain names (.biz .name .info) as these are considered spammy.
Having a ‘keyword rich’ domain name may lead to closer scrutiny from Google. According to Moz, Google has “de-prioritized sites with keyword-rich domains that aren’t otherwise high-quality. Having a keyword in your domain can still be beneficial, but it can also lead to closer scrutiny and a possible negative ranking effect from
search engines—so tread carefully.”
Also you should make sure that if you operate a site without the www. prefix, someone who types in www.example.com will still be redirected to your site. If this isn’t happening, Google may assume these are two different sites and your visibility could be compromised.
13) Headlines and permalinks
The headlines for your articles should be under 55 characters to ensure their complete visibility in SERPs. Make sure they’re snappy, attractive and as descriptive as possible (this is often an impossible balance). Just stay away from clickbait headlines, do not promise something that the content doesn’t deliver.
The permalink (or URL), which you can normally alter in your CMS even after it’s been set automatically, doesn’t necessarily have to match the headline exactly. Google has stated that you can use three to four key words that you should put the most important keywords first.
14) Comments
Do not turn off your comments system. Having a thriving community of regular commenters engaging in dialogue under your posts shows that visitors care enough about your content to either make their own relevant points or to praise it or to ruthlessly eviscerate it. Either way, at least people are reading it.
Just be super-mindful about filtering out spam comments, or immediately removing any that slip through. It’s also worth adding the nofollow value to your comments section so Google ignores any erroneous links that may appear.
Increasingly Google is serving results to users based on their location. This is particularly important to businesses out there in the real world who ned to catch a searcher’s attention just at the right moment, i.e. while walking down the street, on their mobile and looking for somewhere to eat.
You should register with Google My Business and ensure that all of your information is accurate and up-to-date, such as opening times, contact information, customer reviews and that your categorised correctly.
16) Social
The most obvious way that you can raise your site’s visibility through non-technical SEO means is of course through social media marketing.
You need to make sure you’re present on all relevant social channels (wherever your audience may be), and not just broadcasting your content in a faceless manner, but by using it as a customer service channel and genuinely interacting with people in a friendly, helpful and entertaining manner.
The actual correlation between social signals and search rankings is a much argued over subject, but here’s a good overview of the subject.
What are search engines NOT looking for?
There are many ‘black hat’ practices that can bring the full weight of a Google penalty down on your site, so it’s best to avoid doing the following, even if it looks like a brilliant easy win at the time.
17) Keyword stuffing
Overusing keywords on your pages, especially when they obviously affect the readability of your site. It’s debatable whether Google even still uses keywords as a ranking factor anymore.
18) Link buying or excessive link exchanging
Thinking of approaching a link farm? Just don’t do it. It’s not even worth it. The most valuable links to your site are the ones that come from authority sites within your own niche.
19) Annoying ads
Anything overly intrusive that destroys the pleasure of reading your content and slows down your site speed.
20) Mobile app interstitials
If you present mobile visitors with a full-screen advert to download your app, Google will consider you no longer mobile friendly.
21) Duplicated content
If Google finds two identical pieces of content, whether on your own site, or on another you’re not even aware of, it will only index one of those pages. You should be aware of scraper sites, stealing your content automatically and republishing as your own. Here’s Graham Charlton’s thorough investigation on what to if your content ends up working better for somebody else.
22) Hidden text and links
There are a ways to manipulate rankings that a user may not ever see, but Google will probably find and punish you for.
Stay away from using white text on a white background, positioning text off-screen, setting font size to zero or hiding a link in a single character like a comma or a full-stop.
The temptation to put a link in that last full stop was incredibly high.
Right, on that note, I’ll finish up. Clearly this isn’t everything that you can do to help your initial SEO efforts, but it’s a good grounding at least
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything vital or just got something plain wrong…
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The Department of Economic Security (DES) is the safety net agency for the State of Arizona. As one of the largest agencies in state government, DES serves more than 2 million Arizonans annually through more than 40 programs that address the social and economic needs of those we serve. DES’s more than 8,000 employees serve Arizonans from Phoenix to Tucson, Yuma to Flagstaff and from Douglas to Page. The agency’s tagline: “Your Partner for a Stronger Arizona” is intended to frame the work efforts toward growing the capacity of Arizonans in need of safety net services, and where possible, reduce their dependency on those vital supports.
Here is a list of main services provided by DES, classified by the DES client’s needs:
Managed IT Services are the holistic, all-inclusive approach to network consulting. A Managed Services Provider (MSP) takes responsibility for the entire IT infrastructure on an ongoing basis. For a fixed monthly retainer, we provide the gamut of IT services automatically, guaranteeing 100% network up time.
Having an MSP is the opposite of the old ‘Break & Fix’ model, where when your network goes down, you wait and pay by the hour once somebody shows up to search out the problem and fix it.
How Long is a Managed Services Contract For?
Typical MSP contracts range from 1 year to 5 years and are extremely difficult to get out of. Among other steps involved it requires the client to document all incompetence or unsatisfactory work, as in a diary or journal, to show the MSP has not performed according to the contract. covary by provider. The inclusions and exclusions within each contract vary.
With IT Support LA, you’ll find a few things that make us different.
No Contracts: We have to earn your business every day. We offer a Master Service Agreement (MSA) which either party can cancel with 30 days’ notice.
No Hidden Fees: You won’t get blindsided half way into our agreement with balloon payments, hidden fees and other charges
Flexible Business Model: Whether your company is upsizing or in the unfortunate event downsizing, the flexibility of our Master Service Agreement allows you to adjust your IT coverage to your ongoing business needs.
No Contract HaaS (Hardware as a Service): We are the only IT company in the LA area that offers a hardware and licensing solution combined with our support with NO contract. We take all the risk from the beginning to build trust and establish a firm symbiotic relationship with our customers.
Who is a good candidate for Managed IT Services?
If you relate to any of these statements, chances are you are a good candidate for Managed IT Services from IT Support LA:
You just want the darn thing to work!
You didn’t go into your profession with the idea to become an IT guy later in your career.
You understand what it costs your company to NOT focus on your businesses’ priorities.
You’re sick and tired of dealing with rude, arrogant and know it all Techs who try to baffle you with GeekSpeak to get you to stop asking them questions.
You realize that it costs WAY more for your business to be down, than the cost of a few hours of tech support.
You’re done with finding, hiring and managing IT staff.
You realize that your business depends on IT technology and can’t be avoided (kind of like death and taxes).
You realize that Managed Services incentivizes your IT provider to fix issues right the first time, rather than profit off you by racking up the billable hours with temporary band aid fixes. Fixing things quickly saves us BOTH money.
You’ve been putting up with your current IT support issues because you didn’t want the hassle of changing to another support vendor, but it has become unavoidable. With IT Support LA, changing is a snap and will not disrupt your office.
Who is not a good candidate for Managed IT Services?
Signs you might NOT be a good candidate for Managed IT Services:
You are still using an abacus instead of a calculator (we can still help you, but you’ve got to recognize your problem and WANT to change).
You do not measure the performance of your business and its employees and don’t care how much money you are losing.
Your IT plan is to “keep the computers till the wheels fall off”, regardless of the risk of losing your mission critical information.
You enjoy work arounds for your work arounds, because you seek to make your life more difficult.
You don’t care how employees use business resources during work hours, regardless of the risk to you (lawsuits, viruses, downtime.
Your PC doubles as an ashtray (seen it and worse).
You might say “Well Jim’s son is pretty good with computers, he hopes to go into IT after High School, so I just call him.” (Would you be ok using him to help you with dental issues if he hoped to do that after High School?)
What are the benefits of Managed IT Services?
The biggest difference between Managed Services and contracted Standard IT services is Reactive vs Proactive. With a Standard IT services contract, when your systems are down, it quickly becomes a state of emergency: You call, and the IT person comes out and fixes it. That means your company is out of commission until the tech gets there, troubleshoots the system, diagnoses the problem and fixes it, racking up those billable hours. It also puts you in the precarious position of hoping your backup was successful, hoping that data hasn’t been corrupted by Viruses and Spyware and a litany of other “What If’s”.
Another big issue is there really is no incentive to keep your systems running efficiently and securely. In a Standard IT service contract, the IT person only gets paid when your system goes down. In a Managed Services contract, the IT Partner is incentivized to keep your systems running because they get paid a flat rate. It actually costs them more money to send a tech out, so as opposed to a standard IT person, the Managed Services Partner will do proactive maintenance and monitoring so they can predict problems before they affect your business. Managed Services is usually on a per computer basis, however IT Support LA will put together a plan unique to your office needs.
If you are already a registered online user, your current user ID and password will provide you access to all services (Employment Services and Unemployment Services).
If you are already a registered online user, your current user ID and password will provide you access to all services (Employment Services and Unemployment Services).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the activity of optimizing web pages or whole sites in order to make them search engine friendly, thus getting higher positions in search results.
This tutorial explains simple SEO techniques to improve the visibility of your web pages for different search engines, especially for Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
This tutorial has been prepared for beginners to help them understand the simple but effective SEO characteristics.
We assume you are aware of simple web technologies such as HTML, XHTML, Style Sheet, etc. If you already have developed any website, then it is an added advantage and it will help you understand the concepts of SEO explained in this tutorial.
3CX Phone System is an open standards communications solution, suitable for any sized business that wants all the features of an advanced contact center at a fraction of the cost. 3CX can take your business communications to the next level, helping to improve collaboration, boost productivity, increase mobility and enhance the customer experience. Installation and maintenance can be handled effortlessly by anyone, whether installed on-premises on Windows or Linux on an appliance or server, or in the cloud.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the term information technology (IT) was a little known phrase that was used by those who worked in places like banks and hospitals to describe the processes they used to store information. With the paradigm shift to computing technology and “paperless” workplaces, information technology has come to be a household phrase. It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information.
In the early days of computer development, there was no such thing as a college degree in IT. Software development and computer programming were best left to the computer scientists and mathematical engineers, due to their complicated nature. As time passed and technology advanced, such as with the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s and its everyday use in the home and the workplace, the world moved into the information age.
By the early 21st century, nearly every child in the Western world, and many in other parts of the world, knew how to use a personal computer. Businesses’ information technology departments have gone from using storage tapes created by a single computer operator to interconnected networks of employee workstations that store information in a server farm, often somewhere away from the main business site. Communication has advanced, from physical postal mail, to telephone fax transmissions, to nearly instantaneous digital communication through electronic mail (email).
Great technological advances have been made since the days when computers were huge pieces of equipment that were stored in big, air conditioned rooms, getting their information from punch cards. The information technology industry has turned out to be a huge employer of people worldwide, as the focus shifts in some nations from manufacturing to service industries. It is a field where the barrier to entry is generally much lower than that of manufacturing, for example. In the current business environment, being proficient in computers is often a necessity for those who want to compete in the workplace.
Jobs in information technology are widely varied, although many do require some level of higher education. Positions as diverse as software designer, network engineer, and database administrator are all usually considered IT jobs. Nearly any position that involves the intersection of computers and information may be considered part of this field.
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