SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION - INTERNET MARKETING Web Site Development Search Engine Marketing Web Site Optimization Legal Link Programs Media Releases Opt In Mail Programs & Services Mail Flyer Creation

Are you lost on the web? It's no use having a web site that people can't find!
Search engine optimization ensures positive rankings for your web site. First Page SEO specializes in search engine optimization, custom web sites, web site submission, meta key word ranking, site placement ranking, keyword body text positioning, blogs, keyword bidding and complete internet marketing and web promotion consulting services. If you use an internet web site to market or promote a business, nothing will be more important to your success than first page listings with the search engines. Search engines are your customers' tool of choice, out ranking all other forms of media.
Customers visiting your website via a search engine query have a targeted interest in the products and services you provide. They want to find you!

Every month more than 900 million unique visitors use search engines to seek out information over the Worldwide Web. The importance of implementing an effective search engine optimization strategy is paramount! With such a huge potential market just waiting to visit your website, it is crucial that your website be found on the first few pages of a keyword search, well ahead of your competitors.

No business today can afford to miss out on the tremendous potential of the massive Internet market. Simply being listed with one or more of the various search engines will not guarantee success. Research has established that if people have not found what they want on the first page of a search result query they will simply type in a new search phrase. Competition for the listings on the first page of a search engine query is fierce, because high placement dictates success.

So how do you get your web site noticed and ahead of your competitors?

The answer is to have your web site optimized for the search engines by a professional SEO marketer, so that when customers come looking it's you that they find!

ABOUT FIRST PAGE SEO - SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

We are based in Ontario Canada but our client base for Internet marketing services extends around the world. Our specialty is hospitality marketing and we have over 200 resort sites as First Page SEO customers. We do however, serve many other businesses including finance, insurance, utility, retail, artists, and trades. Our Toronto search engine optimization practice extends beyond JUST SEO practices and includes web site hosting, domain name registration, web site design, web site development, advertising flyers, opt in mail programs, web based self publishing news letters, logo development , news programs for back-links and keyword bidding (we keyword bid for clients on over 600 accounts).

We are totally up to date with search engine algorithms, Internet marketing techniques and we area able to answer your detailed questions. Much of our business is conducted over the telephone and email with clients in Canada, overseas and in the U.S.

Unlike many of our competitors providing "canned" services, First Page SEO was instrumental in introducing the standard marketing concept of competitive analysis to the practice of Search Engine Optimization. The first step of our process is to understand your Internet Marketing requirements, as well as your product and services strengths & weaknesses. In general, we can do a better job for you if we know your business and your product and services channels. We are different from most Search Engine Optimization consultants in that our background is in corporate marketing with extensive formal marketing training before we entered the web arena many years ago.

We are experts in our field and publish news and regular papers on Internet marketing. Some of our results are astonishing. By example, the last time we checked our clients occupied 80% of the first page positions for Ontario resort keyword related phrases. If you are looking for a Toronto Search Engine Marketing Consultant or any Ontario Search Engine Optimization assistance we are right on your doorstep. If you are in far-flung regions of the world, we can also accommodate your needs. By example, we have developed affiliate marketing sites for a company in California from our Ontario Canada Office. We are always available for consultation.

Here is a media release pertaining to our award from TopSeos.com for organic web site placement capability.

Social Network Release
Canadian Company First Page SEO Named 19th Worldwide for Organic Search Engine Optimization

First Page SEO has been ranked number 19 for organic search engine marketing results by TopSeos.com. First Page SEO was one of two Canadian companies to break into the top 30 ranking of search engine marketing firms. Two companies from the U.K. and one from New Zealand also made the Top 30 List. The other 25 ranked companies were U.S. based.

Since 2002, TopSeos.com has evaluated the leading internet marketing services giving companies a trusted resource for locating the right online marketing vendors. Published each month, the Top 30 list of web site marketing firms reaches more than 500,000 internet marketers and web based entrepreneurs.

First Page SEO increased its presence in the SEM Marketplace from a previous rank of 24. "Search engine marketing is an incredibly competitive industry", says Mark Coles, senior partner at First Page SEO. "It's gratifying to be recognized for our web site marketing ability - we've been at this for many years. We have some customers in competitive areas with more than two million competing pages on Google that have never left the first page four years running. Our own site has always been at or near the top of Google for "Ontario search engine optimization" for six years. We see the others come and go and we see the trendy kitschy seminars in various industries that make attendees feel warm and fuzzy but don't deliver results. Web site owners owe it to themselves to take a look at the track record of their web master or SEO company. Results on the web are a matter of record". adds Coles.

Top Seos.Com evaluates candidates using a rigorous selection process in terms of competitive advantage, superior service and pricing, technical support, innovation, client response, overall efficiency and overall performance.

First Page SEO - Ontario internet marketing consultants located near Toronto. We provide a full range of search engine optimization packages, web site promotion, web page design & development services.

About This Site

You will find a wealth of information on search engine optimization and internet marketing on this web site. We are constantly updating this site to include the most up to date search engine marketing strategies. We also use the First Page SEO site as an ongoing experiment - we test our theories against search engine algorithms on an ongoing basis and you will find the marketing advice in the News area to be up to date and leading edge. We experiment with our own web site so that we don't have to take chances with your site. We share our knowledge because we know there are few who can stay on top of internet marketing strategies because it is a constant and ongoing learning curve.

We also hope that when you are serious about promoting your web site that you will consider us. Not just because we're accessible, easy to talk to and that we always give you the straight goods - but mostly because we provide the best value in the business. Many of our customers have come to us after using search engine optimization services that didn't deliver and provided little if any "one on one" time with the client. We always take the time to understand your business and that of your competitors. We won't make outlandish promises in order to secure your business but we will work hard to market your website and you can be sure that the fundamentals will be sound and our efforts will pay off in added business coming to your web site.

First Page SEO would also like to remind you that we are not just search engine marketers. We build some terrific custom websites at very competitive prices and we offer domain, hosting services and direct mail programs. Have a look at some of the web site samples on our Marketing page. If you have questions do not hesitate to call or email us. We're a company where you'll have a knowledgeable consultant take your call and not a sales agent or a call centre response.

Whereas all parties are working towards presenting relevant and high quality information in an easy to use format to information seekers, and whereas SEO practitioners are being contracted to assist clients in obtaining higher rankings for client pages, we (and those linking to this page) are voluntarily adhering to the below SEO Code of Ethics:

SEO Code of Ethics

No SEO practitioner will intentionally do harm to a client. This involves the continued use of any technology or procedure (without appropriate care) that is known to result in having the client site removed from search engine indexes or directories, or rendered inoperative. Questionable adherence to standards must be addressed via the Robots Exclusion Standard.

No SEO practitioner will intentionally violate any specifically published and enforced rules of search engines or directories. Should rules and guidelines change (as they often do), the SEO practitioner will promptly take action to comply with the changes as they apply to all clients. Where rules and guidelines are unclear, the SEO practitioner will seek clarification and await approval from the appropriate search engine before continuing to utilize potentially harmful technology or procedures.

No SEO practitioner will intentionally mislead, harm, or offend a consumer. All individuals utilizing a search engine to visit a site will not be misled by the information presented to or by the search engine, or harmed or offended upon arrival at the client site. This includes techniques like "bait and switch" where the client page does not substantially contain and is not clearly associated with the optimized phrase, or may be reasonably offensive to targeted visitors.

No SEO practitioner will intentionally violate any laws. This involves the deliberate and continued violation of copyright, trademark, servicemark, or laws related to spamming as they may exist at the state, federal, or international level.

No SEO practitioner will falsely represent the content of the client site. This includes the practice of presenting different versions of web pages to different users except where that information is altered solely to meet browser specifications and needs, sensitivity to regional factors such as language, or product specific needs. In general, ALL requests for a specific URL should be served identical HTML by the web server.

No SEO practitioner will falsely represent others work as their own. This includes the tak.ng of work from others in whole or in part and representing this work as their own. The SEO practitioner may not make verbatim copies of the work of others (instead of authoring original work) without the prior consent of the other party.

No SEO practitioner will misrepresent their own abilities, education, training, standards of performance, certifications, trade group affiliations, technical inventory, or experiences to others. This includes quantifiable statements related to project timetables, performance history, company resources (staff, equipment, and proprietary products), and client lists. Guarantees will be restricted to items over which the SEO practitioner has significant and reasonable control.

No SEO practitioner will participate in a conflict of interest without prior notice to all parties involved. This includes the practice of choosing to emphasize one client over another in competing keywords because there is more personal gain for the practitioner. All clients are treated equally and all will receive equal best effort in their Search Engine Optimization.

No SEO practitioner will set unreasonable client expectations. This includes the practice of accepting more than a reasonable number of clients competing for the same keywords and implying that all will be in the top positions in the search engines. This also includes the implication that results can be obtained in an unreasonable amount of time given the known condition of the search engines, client site, and competition.

All SEO practitioners will offer their clients both internal and external dispute resolution procedures. This includes the publishing of address and phone numbers on primary web pages, the inclusion of third-party dispute resolution links prominently placed within the practitioners web site, and contracts that include sections discussing dispute resolution.

All SEO practitioners will protect the confidentiality and anonymity of their clients with regards to privileged information and items implying testimonial support for the SEO practitioner. All staff of SEO practitioner shall be bound to protect information that is not generally known as it may harm the client. The SEO practitioner will not include the publishing of testimonials and proprietary logos of client lists, press releases, and other collateral discussing the client without explicit approvals.

All SEO practitioners will work to their best ability to increase or retain the rankings of client sites. Clients are contracting for fee with the SEO practitioner in order to obtain and retain search engine placement. The SEO practitioner is charged with an obligation to utilize appropriate and allowed technology and methodologies to improve and retain the rankings for their clients in the face of shifting search engine technology, competition, and client web site needs.


Search Engine Guidelines - Google, MSN, Yahoo

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outlines some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index. Once a site has been removed, it will no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites.

Design and Content Guidelines:

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
• Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Technical Guidelines:

• Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
• Allow search bots to crawl your site without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.
• Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
• Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you don't accidentally block the Googlebot crawler. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn how to instruct robots when they visit your site.
• If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system can export your content so that search engine spiders can crawl your site.
• Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we don't include these pages in our index.

When your site is ready:

• Have other relevant sites link to yours.
• Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
• Submit a sitemap as part of our Google Sitemaps (Beta) project. Google Sitemaps uses your sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
• Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.
• Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:

• Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
• Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
• Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don't send automated queries to Google.
• Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
• Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.

MSN Technical recommendations for your website

• Use only well-formed HTML code in your pages. Ensure that all tags are closed, and that all links function properly. If your site contains broken links, MSNBot may not be able to index your site effectively, and people may not be able to reach all of your pages.
• If you move a page, set up the page's original URL to direct people to the new page, and tell them whether the move is permanent or temporary. For more information, see What to do when your site moves.
• Make sure MSNBot is allowed to crawl your site and is not on your list of web crawlers that are prohibited from indexing your site.
• Use a robots.txt file or meta tags to control how MSNBot and other web crawlers index your site. The robots.txt file tells web crawlers which files and folders it is not allowed to crawl. The Web Robots Pages provide detailed information on the robots.txt Robots Exclusion standard. This site may be available in English only.
• Keep your URLs simple and static. Complicated or frequently changed URLs are difficult to use as link destinations. For example, the URL www.example.com/mypage is easier for MSNBot to crawl and for people to type than a long URL with multiple extensions. Also, a URL that doesn't change is easier for people to remember, which makes it a more likely link destination from other sites.

Content guidelines for your website

The best way to attract people to your site, and keep them coming back, is to design your pages with valuable content that your target audience is interested in.

• In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site.
• Limit all pages to a reasonable size. We recommend one topic per page. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB.
• Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link.
• Keep the text that you want indexed outside of images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is displayed on your page outside of a company logo.
• Add a site map. This enables MSNBot to find all of your pages easily. Links embedded in menus, list boxes, and similar elements are not accessible to web crawlers unless they appear in your site map.
• Keep your site hierarchy fairly flat. That is, each page should only be one to three clicks away from the home page.

Items and techniques discouraged by MSN Search

The following items and techniques are not appropriate uses of the MSN Search index. Use of these items and techniques may affect how your site is ranked within MSN Search and may result in the removal of your site from the index.

• Loading pages with irrelevant words in an attempt to increase a page's keyword density. This includes stuffing ALT tags that users are unlikely to view.
• Using hidden text or links. You should use only text and links that are visible to users.
• Using techniques to artificially increase the number of links to your page, such as link farms.

Minimum Site Criteria for Yahoo Directory Submission

All web sites submitted to Yahoo! Directory Submit must meet the following minimum criteria:

• If the site is a commercial web site, the official business name must be visible to any visitor to that site;
• The site must clearly define its purpose, products, and/or services;
• The site may not appear in the Directory under a different URL;
• If the site is applicable to a specific geographic region, the address must be visible to any visitor to that site;
• The site must not contain any parts under construction;
• All links on the site must function properly;
• The site must be in the English language (or have an English version available);
• The site must support multiple browsers and capabilities (e.g., no Java-only
• The site must be up and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week;
• The site must not be dedicated to directing the user to another page;
• The page may not give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees.

THESE CRITERIA ARE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS ONLY, AND YAHOO!, IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION, MAY CONSIDER OTHER CRITERIA BEFORE ACCEPTING, REJECTING, OR REMOVING A SITE.

Selection and Listing of Sites

Yahoo! reserves the right to decide whether, where, and how a site is listed in the Directory. If Yahoo! accepts your site for inclusion in the Directory, Yahoo! will consider your preferences, but reserves the right to list your site in any category or subcategory as Yahoo! deems appropriate, in its sole discretion. Yahoo! reserves the right not to include any specific keywords, comments, or annotations with the listing of a site in the Directory.

Yahoo! also reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to remove your site from the Directory, move the listing to a different category or subcategory, and change or remove any keywords, comments, or annotations at any time, for any reason, including but not limited to, a change in the nature, business, goods, or services or content available on the site. Please note: Yahoo! Directory does not accept listings for online gambling sites and prescription drug sites. Online gambling sites are those that have gambling as their central theme, including those that accept wagers or require payment in exchange for the chance to win prizes, as well as sites that offer both information and links related primarily to the promotion of online gambling. Prescription drug sites are those that sell prescription drug products, as well as sites that offer information or links related primarily to the sale of prescription drugs.

Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines

Pages Yahoo! Wants Included in its Index

• Original and unique content of genuine value
• Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
• Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
• Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page
• Good web design in general

What Yahoo! Considers Unwanted

Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Yahoo! does not want include:

• Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
• Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page
• Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
• Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames
• Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value
• Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
• The use of text that is hidden from the user
• Pages that give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees
• Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity
• Pages built primarily for the search engines
• Misuse of competitor names
• Multiple sites offering the same content
• Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation
• Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience

Do you index dynamically generated pages (e.g., asp, .shtml, PHP, "?", etc.)?

Yahoo! does index dynamic pages, but for page discovery, our crawler mostly follows static links. We recommend you avoid using dynamically generated links except in directories that are not intended to be crawled/indexed (e.g., those should have a /robots.txt exclusion).