SEO SEM Tips - Avanindra

Search Engine Algorithm Basics for Onpage Optimization - Feb 2012

2012-02-29T00:11:00.000-08:00

A good search engine tries to answer the underlying question

But only by analyzing the on-site and off-site factors is it possible for Google to determine which pages will answer is the question behind the query. For this Google will have to analyze the text on a page.

True OR False
Search engines have evolved tremendously in recent years, but at first they could only deal with Boolean operators. In simple terms, a term was included in a document or not. Something was true or false, 1 or 0. Additionally you could use the operators as AND, OR and NOT to search documents that contain multiple terms or to exclude terms.

Number of times you use a keyword term is not necessarily important. It is important to find the right balance for the keyword terms you want to rank.

An explanation of the table below:

tf = term frequency

df = document frequency

idf = inverse document frequency

Wt,q = weight for term in query

Wt,d = weight for term in document

Product = Wt,q * Wt,d

Score = Sum of the products

formula for this is as follows:

The table below is a visual representation of this formula. Suppose we apply the following values :
Query terms: +1 (alpha)
Relevant terms: +1 (beta)
Irrelevant terms: -0.5 (gamma)

Speed up the process
static values to determine for which documents you want to calculate the score. For example PageRank is a good static value. When you first calculate the score for the pages matching the query and having an high PageRank, you have a good change to find some documents which would end up in the top 10 of the results anyway.

Relevance feedback
Relevance feedback is assigning more or less value to a term in a query, based on the relevance of a document. Their first attempt was by adding the favorite star at the search results. Now they are trying it with the Google+ button. If enough people start pushing the button at a certain result, Google will start considering the document relevant for that query.

What Are Buying Keywords?

2012-02-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

keyword phrase are of two type "research keyword" (1) and not a "buying keyword"(2)
"research keyword" generate traffics to your website with these keywords and "buying keyword." generate lead and sale to close the deals.

The consumer hasn't yet found the specific type of treadmill yet, so they are gathering information. So if you're simply looking for a badge of honor showing how you get a ton of website traffic that barely converts into paid customers, then you would choose option Number (1).
On the other hand, if you're the smart entrepreneur I think you are, you chose option Number (2) because you want higher quality traffic that requires a lot less work. How so?

What Are Buying Keywords?
A buying keyword is simply a query that someone types in to a search engine that means that they are actively looking to buy
a product if they find it for the best price. Now, many will convert terribly but a lot of them will convert well.

The main point of this buying keywords post is to not forget how people use a search engine. People trust them and they ask
them questions believing that the results in, say, Google are what they have found to be the best price for…….

We encourage you to compare our prices with anyone else as we are confident that you will not find…..cheaper on line”
You get the idea.

We have a very nice and genuine business model here where we are really showing people where to get something at a great
price.

What Are Buying Keywords?
Buy…….
……….For sale
Best price……….
………….Best price
Best…….
Cheap…….
………Cheap
Cheapest………..
Low cost………
Low price………
……..Sale
For sale……….
………For sale online
Who sells…………..
Where to buy…………
Discount………….
Discounted………..
Compare……..
Price compare……..
Price comparisons……….
Price comparisons of……….
………..On Amazon (yes really)
Where can I buy……….
Where can you buy………
How do I get……….
Who sells……..cheap
Who sells………the cheapest
The cheapest……….online
………Compare prices
…………Under (add your price ranges)
Who sells the cheapest………..on line
Buy…………online
Cheap …………online
Cheapest………..online
………..On line
Bargain…………..
What is the best price for…………
Affordable………….
………….Reviews
Best reviews of……….
Buying………..
Get cheap………
Price comparisons for…………
Compare prices for……….
Deals for………
Online……..
Is……….better than……..
Compare………..and………
Get the best price for……….
……………

1. targeted potential customers

2. choice of target market (you get to choose which keywords are best related to your product)

3. inexpensive way to drive traffic to your site

4. Obtain a high search engine ranking and optimization up front without major expense

Most Common PPC Mistakes

2012-02-28T23:06:00.001-08:00

As I manage PPC campaigns I always notice the silly and sometimes not so silly mistakes that advertisers make with their PPC programs. Fixing these mistakes could mean an extra 70% of revenue or a savings of thousands of dollars every month.

Below is a list (we all love those lists don’t we?) of the most common mistakes marketers make with their paid search (PPC) advertising campaigns.

1. Bidding Broad - It’s important to not be lazy when setting up that campaign of yours. Every industry has their giant keywords that bring the most traffic but there are many more variation of keywords that are being searched. The more you focus on the “long tail keywords”, the less you’re going to pay per click. Furthermore, your ads will be ranked higher if the keyword is closer matched. Take your 100 keywords and make them into 200 by just looking at your own web statistics for exact keyword variations people use to search for your product.

2. Fighting for #1 Spot - Most of the time (from my experience), being #1 ad in paid search results is not the brightest strategy, especially if you’re paying a lot per click and the keyword is broad. I found that one of THE best ranks in paid search is being #3 (top left side for Google). Look, most people do research before they buy online. Being #1 could mean that you’ll attract visitors who might have not used the right keyword for their search or ones that are just starting their research and thus … you’ll be remembered last when they are ready to buy.

3. Avoiding Geo-targeting - Even if what you sell works all over US or world, people are still more keen on using a local provider or at least a company that recognizes “their state”. It’s just a psychological thing. Google and other search engines allow you to geo-target your PPC ads by state. Create 50 ads and drop in the state name inside the ad. You will surely get a higher click through rate (CTR) and thus a lower CPC. Furthermore … right from the start, your visitor will know that you “recognize” their location.

4. Losing Relevance on Landing Page - Whatever you say in your ad … repeat it on the landing page where you’re taking the visitor! If you are advertising an 80% sale in your ad, you can be sure that people are looking for it when they land on your landing page. If they don’t see it … they leave. It’s kind of like a scent they pick up on when they read your PPC ad and look for when they land on a page you take them to.

5. Getting Rid of Fraud Networks - Every paid search engine, be it Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc, has a network to which they distribute your ads. Unfortunately, many of these networks are fraudulent and do not refer quality traffic. Look into your web statistics and find domain names that bring you traffic with a high bounce rate. Usually it will be around 90%. Google allows you to drop these domains into a “negative excluded sites” folder while Yahoo and others make you call them to address the problem. Doing this will prevent you from paying for garbage traffic.

6. Being Boring - I still see marketers go online, search for a keyword, look at the advertisers (competition) and create ads to fit in with the “community”. Silly right? Unfortunately, very true. Anytime you create a paid ad you MUST look at what is already being said by the advertisers and come up with something unique and yet relevant. It’s a tough one but you have to identify what is unique about you and why people should buy from you. Just make sure that it’s what your target market wants and cares about.

7. Using Telephone Numbers - Using a telephone number within your PPC ad is an eye catcher … that’s all. Not many people will pick up their phone and dial your number if they see your ad. So what you’re doing is just wasting space that can be used for a good message. Tests have been done and this was proven quite a few times … get rid of that phone number in the ad.

8. Not Bidding for Your Name - If your competition is targeting your company name as a keyword I’d suggest taking legal actions (if applicable). In our company we send out those legal letters at least every other month to a competitor. If you’re in a different situation … bidding for your keywords will mean more traffic and another real estate space devoted to you on that search results page. I’d even bid for the company name if there were no competitors at all. You will pay around 0.05 to 0.10 cents per click and see the amount of searches (impressions) that are done for your brand name. A little of extra statistics that shows you the possible growth of your company.

9. Lack of Affiliate Control - The company name is usually the highest converting keyword. Your affiliates know this and advertise under your company’s name in paid search. What happens is that not only do you now have to pay your affiliate for the sale “they” brought in, but you’ve already paid your due with your own advertising methods for that customer to know your name before the search. Be sure to prevent your affiliates advertising in paid search for your company’s name. All they are doing there is collecting the cash from your own advertising.

10. Not Separating Content Match from Search Results - This is a mistake 101. Yes it takes time, but any campaign should separate their regular search advertising from content match. This will allow you to get better reporting, set different cost per click, different budget and overall have a cleaner look at both of these campaigns. Just separate into 2 campaigns. Both will have same keywords but one campaign will be created only for “search” and the other one for “content match”.

11. Ignoring the Seasonal Copy - It works. Including a seasonal discount or a “holiday special” in your ad copy is a great way to increase your CTR and get more sales. Furthermore, your ad will clearly stand out from the rest. Make it a Christmas special, Spring special, Summer blow out, etc. Make it relevant to “today”.

12. Lack of “Exact Tracking” - You must be able to track every visit to your site from PPC advertising by the exact keyword, campaign and ad group used. To do so you can set variables (yourcompany.com/?keyword) or integrate your PPC campaigns with your website analytics software. This is the only way you can really calculate the effectiveness of every keyword you use to get traffic.

13. Paying for Negative Keywords - Google and other search engines allow you to report keywords for which your ads should not be shown. If you’re paying for “broad match” keywords, you’ll see a lot of visits from people who’ve typed your keyword with a word “free” or “stock” or “jobs”. Do you want to pay money for visitors who’re looking to pay $0 for what you sell? Do you want to pay money for visitors who are researching stock info on what you sell? Be sure to use that “negative keyword folder” to get rid of these worthless clicks.

14. Mistaking CTR with conversion rate when testing ads - We love to test and that’s great, but what should marketers look for when choosing which ads to keep and which to delete? Looking only at the CTR (click through rate) is a false indication of a better performing ad. If you add a word “FREE” to your ad, you’ll see a jump in your CTR but what good will it do?

15. Not Using Keywords in Ad Copy - This is a simple one. Put keywords into your ad copy for which you are serving the ad. Not only will your ad be more relevant but the keywords in it are going to be bold.

16. Not Calling Google - Ok, I am not a fan of being a “rat” or telling on someone, but my friend … when it comes to business and playing fair, you have every right to raise a flag when you see a competitor engaging in bad techniques. You’ll notice some of your competitors creating multiple accounts and having 2 ads simultaneously on the Google PPC results page. Google has a policy against this. Call Google and let them know if your competitor is doing anything that’s against the rules of the search engine. You’ll be amazed how quickly they take care of the problem.

17. Avoiding Brand Name Keywords - It is unfortunate, but many companies do not take advantage of their competitors. How do you do this? Bid on their brand / company name. Think about it … anyone searching for your competitor could easily be your customer instead. Why not have your ad show up under that keywords? What if they are still shopping around? What if they are searching for your competitor’s name because they saw their TV or radio ad. Bottom line is, bid on your competitor’s brand names. Most of the time the ROI on those keywords is excellent. If you get a “legal letter” from the competitors and it holds water, I’d suggest comply with it.

18. Campaign Settings Set to All Devices:

Like number 1, new campaigns are automatically set to target all devices, which now include mobile devices. I always opt out of serving ads on mobile devices in the same campaign as computers. Serving ads on mobile devices can be a great way to reach certain audiences, especially when a call is the desired action, but you would want to set up a campaign to target this separately as bids, ad copy and landing pages need to be optimized separately for this medium.

19. Poor Budgeting by Campaigns:

Oftentimes, I see accounts set up that have their budgets set so their ads have very poor visibility throughout the day. While budgets are sometimes necessary for a business, there are so many ways to maximize how you spend your budget. Points 1-4 will actually help your budget spread further. Other tactics include but are not limited to:

a. Separating out your high CPC or top spending keywords in their own campaign so that they do not eat up your entire budget from more tail targeted keywords in the same campaign

b.Take advantage of Day Parting. Scour your Google Analytics for the day of week and time of day that do not convert cost effectively, and use Google’s advanced day parting capabilities to adjust your bids accordingly.

20. Landing Pages that are Not Optimized for PPC Traffic:

Please do not send all of your traffic across all ad groups to a flash home page with no call to action. Your keywords should tie to your ads, which tie to your landing page. More on this topic can be found in the post written by my colleague JoAnne, linked below:

21. Ad Groups that are Not Broken out by Theme:

Break up your ad groups into tightly refined groups so that you can use keywords directly in your ad copy. Not only will your ads be more relevant to your audience, and increase your CTR, but also this will help your Quality Score, which in turn will lower your CPC’s for the same position.

Below is a great link to how Quality Score, Ad Position and CPC are all related and why point 8 is so important when managing a paid search account.

Quality Score Ad Position and CPC What and How They All Connected Together

22. No Ad Copy Testing:

Building on the importance of Quality Score, make sure you are always testing and tweaking ad copy to increase you CTR, which in turn helps your Quality Score. You should pay attention to each ad variations conversion rate as well. More on how SEER evaluates and tests ad copy is included in this post, written by colleague Crystal:

23. For e-commerce Sites, Not Optimizing to Revenue:

When a completed purchase is your target conversion goal, it is imperative that revenue tracking is installed. Doing this requires a dynamic variable (the order subtotal value) in place of the static variable provided by Google. If you’re unfamiliar with revenue tracking, Google has a great Video Tutorial explaining the process step by step. Without having revenue tracking installed properly, you are unable to measure the true profitability of a PPC project. But it doesn’t end with revenue tracking; product margins are just as important when optimizing an ecommerce account. Google uses a metric called ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), which is a simplified version of ROI. The main problem with optimizing around ROAS is that product cost is not considered.

Google has announced an algorithm change

2011-02-24T21:02:00.000-08:00

On the Google Webmaster Central Blog today Amit Singhal, Google Fellow, and Matt Cutts Principal Engineer, announced that an algorithm change is being rolled out that will affect 11.8% of searches. That’s massive. The reason for the algorithm change, as always is to improve the quality of the search results, specifically to down grade low quality sites. These are sites that are basically copying content from other sites or “low value add” whatever that means.

A Good Thing
This is a good thing for users & business. As I’ve always said, don’t worry about trying to trick Google. Just be more relevant for a particular phrase than the no.1 result and you SHOULD be fine. There are exceptions to this as we saw with the JC Penney example but by and large that basic formula still works. The problem for a lot of people is how do you become more “relevant”? Again I look to Google. Matt Cutts continually says produce good content that is useful to users. If users like it they will probably link to it and those links become votes for your pages. It’s one of the reasons I have a blog but certainly not the only one. In recent times there seems to be more and more useless content in the index as the use of techniques like “article spinning” grow in popularity. Article spinning is the process of taking one article then using software to rewrite the same thing fifty different ways and publish it on fifty different sites with a backlink to your target site. Quite often the content will end up as complete gibberish. This algorithm change will see sites like those disappear from the index. As I pointed out a couple of days ago, back link counts in webmaster tools looked as though they had been affected by an algorithm change.

Gnashing of teeth
As most of the sites (not all) that fall into Google’s definition of low quality sites exist to generate revenue from either ad impressions or ad clicks, there will be a lot of people very upset with this change as they see revenue sources dry up overnight. It’s unclear at this stage how directory sites in market verticals will be affected. I would expect if a directory has unique content for more than 80% of each of its pages it should be fine. Those that exist from purely replicating a data feed that is published at multiple domains will have a problem though. In essence if your site is not providing value and unique content, get out of the pool.

Chrome’s Personal Blocklist
Google have said that whilst they have not used the data “gathered” (which is interesting in and of itself) from their new Personal Blocklist plugin for their browser Chrome, they have cross checked the new algorithm results with the blocklist data and it addresses 84% of user concerns. The plugin allows users to block whole domains coming up in their search results. This means we will won’t just be seeing individual pages being weeded out but whole domains as well.

The algorithm is currently being rolled out in the US and the rest of the world will follow. I’d guestimate based on previous roll outs, Australia will be 4 to 6 weeks down the track. Love to know what you’re seeing.

Avanindra SEO services providers for the India based business houses. Our high class assistance is really helpful to optimize your business. For more info visit: www.seo-sem-tips.com

SEO for Landing Page

2009-11-28T23:12:00.000-08:00

Inquiry form short.
Contact details phone numbers.
Brand Logo of services / product / Clients.
Show testimonials,benefits /results.
Special offers/discount.
Use small sentence. (Good grammar).
Related services / products & Information.
free news letter, Information, book, software.
Live chat
Additional qualities of your product , services, team members.
Bookmark this site.
Why our company /services/product.

SEO SEM Check List - Avanindra

2009-11-20T22:18:00.000-08:00

1.Valid XHTML

validate document through the W3C Markup Validation Service - http://validator.w3.org/

2.Title Tag

Every page needs a distinct title tag that defines what that page is about, it should also contain the keywords for that page in a locigal coherant manner, not just randomly placed in there. Build relevancy, matching title and H1 tags are a very wise idea.

This tag belongs in the section of your page and should appear before any other tags in the head section, it is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing you'll put on the page so make it count and make it relevant!
* Example:

3.Description

Under the title tag each page should have a clear and relevant description summarising what that page is about.
* Example:

4.Keywords
Every page needs the keywords tag that if you didn't guess it contains the keywords you're page is relevant to.

* Example:

5.Alternate media / Mobile version
Take a look around, people are surfing everywhere and making your site accessible to them gives them access to your content wherever they are without the need to be tied to a desk.
* Example:

Staggering number of people browsing the web on mobile devices, iPhones, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile and a whole plethora of smartphones. If you're got nice clean markup and not bloated your site with flash and javascript the chances are it may possibly work well on a mobile device.

You can then tell the search engines spiders about your mobile site using the link rel tag and setting the media as handheld.

Mowser rocks, if your site shows Google AdSense it will convert your normal AdSense ad units into 'AdSense for Mobile Content' ad units. Way cool.

A more advanced way to deliver a mobile site would be to detect any mobile phones that visit your site so you can serve them a custom experience suited for their handset
* My mobile device detection function written in PHP - http://detectmobilebrowsers.mobi/
* Check how well your mobile site might perform - http://ready.mobi/

6. Navigational structure
A site that is easy to navigate from a humand point of view is easy to navigate from a spider / search engine point of view. Think of your site as a virtual town, each page is a street and in order for people to find that street you need to ensure you have easy to undertstand signs (links) pointing out where they are.

7.Popularity filtering / Folksonomy

Show links to your most popular content on every page or make them a big part of navigation to place emphasis on the pages that are being viewed the most, do this with sales, aggregate your internal search queries.

* See the Wikipedia article on Folksonomy for a better understanding of the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy

8.Alt tag on images

To add relevancy to your images you should use the alt tag to specify some short descriptive, keyword rich text. This will show in the place of the image whilst the image is loading and will be shown instead of the image when the visitor can't view images either because they've got a visual imparement and are using a screen reading tool or they disabled images in their browser settings.

Also, using relevant file names in your images will help build relevancy, image1.jpg doesn't say anything of any value whereas seo-checklist.jpg speaks volumes!

9.Title on hyperlinks

Adding a title element to a hyperlink will show whatever you put inside that element in a little bubble when the user places their mouse over the link. This is another way of reinforcing the relevancy we're trying to build.

* Example: SEO Checklist

10.Keywords in page / file names

If you have a page all about SEO tips but you called the file page_6.htm there is no relevancy, that page would hold better value if it were titled seo-tips.htm

Try to make your file names and URLs easy to understand and read from a human point of view. /seo-tips.html is easy for the mind to understand /page_6.php?paramter1=2&paramater2=1 is just confusing for humans.

Firefox has the most awesome search facility in the address bar, making URLs and file names easy to understand and keyword rich makes it easier for users to find you again.

11.Keywords in domain
Try to include your keywords in your domain name putting the most important keywords first if you can.

A site about SEO Tips that is hosted at www.pettravelinsurance.net is giving off very mixed signals indeed. It would be much better off hosted at www.seo-tips.com or www.seotips.com - try to include your keywords in your domain name putting the most important keywords first if you can.

12.Keywords in links both internally and externally
Make sure all your links work and the keywords used in the URL, title and anchor text all tie up with the content of the page.
Remember, if you're linking to internal pages try to use the same text in the link anchor as what appears on the page in the title tag.

A quality link on your site will contain all the elements we've just covered, here's an example of a bangingly good hyperlink
* Example: SEO Checklist

As far as a search engine goes it isn't going to have any issues at all working out what that page is going to be about.

It contains keywords in the URL, keywords in the title and keywords in the anchor text. How could even an idiot fail to understand what the page on the end of that link is about!?!? Just make sure all your links work and the keywords used in the URL, title and anchor text all tie up with the content of the page.

That link above points to a page with a title of 'SEO Checklist' and a H1 tag saying 'SEO Checklist' - everything ties up perfect.

13.robots.txt

robots.txt is a small text file that tells seach engine spiders which parts of your site you want them to view and which parts of your site you don't want them to view. Create a plain text file called robots.txt and upload it to your main www / htdocs / public_html directory

This is the contents of the robots.txt file I uploaded to http://seochecklist.mobi/robots.txt

User-Agent: *

Allow: /
* robotstxt.org has this page http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html which again is a perfect example of keywords in a domain and in the filename and explains robots.txt in a nutshell

14.XML sitemap

XML sitemaps help search engines discover content they might not have otherwise found during their regular spiderings, publishing a site map with a comprehensive list of all the pages on your site is a way to directly tell the engines what you have and where it is!

Google has a good article on XML sitemaps and afterall it's traffic from Google you're most wanting so you know you're gonna click it!

15.CONTENT IS KING!

Always write your content for humans not spiders.

16.RSS feeds

RSS stands for really simply syndication and is a pretty simple way to syndicate your content so it's easy to publish on other people's sites. Each site that uses your RSS feed earns you near real-time backlinks, feeds can be harvested by Google, Outlook, a number of sites and applications, allowing users to connect to you through updates without them having to check your site every day. I monitor a number of feeds in my Outlook, it lets me scan the headline and content to see if I want to click through to read the page behind it all.

RSS is a valuable tool for both getting links on other sites and getting your content into the inbox of your visitors.

For stats on how many times your feed is being accessed there's a free service available over at http://feedburner.com/ Take a wild and random guess who owns it now? I'll give you a clue, it begins with a G and ends in oogle. Begs the question: do they rank the sites behind the most popular feeds higher?

17.Social bookmarking tools

Social bookmarking tools will easily let your visitors bookmarks and share your site, this not only makes it easier for them to come back again but it adds to the number of inbound links you have pointing to your site and should increase your traffic.

Adding a free tool like this makes it easy for your visitors to bookmark your site on popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and many many more. Whilst social networking can in this case be great and a traffic bringer it's something personally I've sacked in favour of actually phoning and seeing people instead, I've reclaimed many hours and liberated myself from being sucked into what I feel is total time killing junk.

This service also works on mobile devices allows visitors to your mobile site to share and bookmark you on the mobile versions of the most popular social networking site.

18.Publish fresh content often (spider you more often )

Google and the search engines love fresh content, if you publish new content often they'll be excited by it, they'll spider you more often and be prone to send you more visitors. There's nothing exciting about a site that's stagnating and was last updated in March 2001. Fresh content to spiders is like the smell of freshly baked bread to us humans, they love it, it gives them an appetite for your site and will want to feast on your new content.

Using dynamic methods like aggregating the most popular content and showing it is a way of emulating freshness in that the engines will see your site update often with relevent keywords. Whilst nothing compares with freshly squeezed content dynamic changes on the site can be viewed as a good thing.

19.Tweet when publishing content

When you publish new content push a Tweet to Twitter, freshly published content bring in instant visitors thanks to it being Tweeted.

* Twitter API - http://apiwiki.twitter.com/

Personally I can no longer stand Twitter, I agreed with David Cameron when he said 'Too many tweets make a twat' on Absolute Radio. However from an SEO persepective it has benefits, millions and millions of users, trending topics, hashtags and a growing number of sites and applications on mobile that allow you to search twitter means that pushing your links to it are invaluable.

20.Blog when publishing content

Most if not all blogging or web publishing platforms include an option to ping a number of sites to tell them that you've published fresh content, you can integrate your own ping service when publishing content though it would be simpler to run a relevant blog about your site and publish a post when you've just released fresh content.
* See this post for a list of popular ping services: http://seoblackhat.com/2005/09/05/rss-ping-list/

21.Place your keywords in many tags

H1, H2, H3, LI, P, B - I don't mean stuff the keywords in every tag you can, I mean use your keyword wisely in a number of tags, H1 is the most important tag after the title tag, having your keywords in a number of tags, in bold and in links just reinforces your relevancy.

22.Don't build your entire site in flash unless you don't want traffic!

Spiders find it hard to understand what flash is saying, yes it might look damn pretty and swirly and do funky things when you move your mouse around but it it can't be read by search engine spiders, those on screen readers or mobile devices there's no much point in it.

Keep flash to a minimum, use it for eye candy and funk but don't build a whole site with the stuff, spiders can't read it, there's no keeping of state between pages and nagivating flash can be a nightmare sometimes.

23.Follow Webmaster Guidelines
* Google Webmaster Guidelines
* Bing / MSN Guidelines for successful indexing

24.Don't link to junk

Only ever link to external websites that are QUALITY, many SEO folks would say never link to anything that's less than PageRank 3 but really if it's well written relevant content with relevant anchor text on your page you're onto a winner.

Simply never link to crap, the links away from your site as as valuable as the internal ones, you don't want to send traffic to a junky site as the visitor you're sending there is going to think less of you for doing so, they'll class you as being less authorative that they did before they clicked the duff link and search engines will view links to junk in the same way.

Only link to relevant, high quality pages and sites. Always use anchor text in those links that bring benefit to your page and has relevancy to the page you're linking to.

25.Publish content that is worth linking to

You need to be publishing content that is rich enough in quality that other site owners will want to link to it. If you can do that then the hard long slog of a job that is link building will be much easier. If you publish content that is worth linking to and make it easy for folks to share the content and link to the page through the social network bookmarking services like addthis.com you're even more likely to win.

26.Avoid duplicating pages / duplicate content sucks!

Duplicate content sucks, all the search engines hate it. Near the very top of this list it mentions having UNIQUE title tags, UNIQUE is the important bit here. Make sure all your pages are different, it shows a well organised site and face it as a human if you clicked a link on a page and it took you to an identicle page you'd be a little confuzzled, same applies to the bots. Don't confuzzle your users and don't confuzzle the bots. (Confuse and puzzle if you're on the other side of the irony filter that is the atlantic)

27.Host all images and media files under your URL

Don't leach of other folks bandwitdh, host all the images on your site on your site. This gives you control over the file names so you can optimise them to suit your needs, it also makes you look more authorative than a site that leaches it's content from another source.

28.Use Google alerts to monitor your keywords and contribute where you can

Google Alerts is an invaluable free service that lets you keep an eye on what's coming up on the Google radar for the given search term. This then lets you check out that page and if the content is relevant and there is the opportunity to publish a comment you should do your best to add something valuable to earn a back link.

Note the word contribute, don't spam, no seriously don't spam, it's a bad habit and yeilds no rewards, contributions that are valid and relevant bring something to table and as such the author often gets a credit via a link. Some would protest that blogs use nofollow on external links but the real thing about getting traffic is you want humans and real users, funny eh, real users and humans read blogs. Contribute, get your link there regardlesss of nofollow and it will bring you traffic.Contextual contributions are fine, link spam should be a shootable offence.

Another reason to not spam is Akismet, a spam filter for the WordPress bloggin system, if your URL is added to that you're comments on any WordPress blog will go to trash and never be published, consider it bad karma for link spamming.
* Create a Google Alert - http://www.google.com/alerts

29.Use Google Analytics to monitor your traffic, conversions and keywords

Because if you don't how do you measure your success? Making money is one thing, knowing what your money terms are and where the money comes from it another.

30.Use Google WebMaster Tools

It will tell you which pages have duplicate titles, which URLs are broken and much more

31.Use Google AdSense

It brings in bots and forces Google to browse your content in order for them to show relevant ads, whilst they deny making preference to sites that show AdSense getting Google to come by and check out your site so they can show relevant content is not only priceless in my mind but a revenue generator too that you could reinvest in marketing your site.

32.Don't try anything daft or dodgy

Google is smarter than you are, they'll bust your ass if you try to blag them. They know, they can bin you from results so it's better to play it safe, be honest and be in it for the long game than try to sneakily get to the top of the results to be blown out the water a later time. I refer to the point above about webmaster guidelines, it's better to follow them than break them.

Basic SEO activity

2009-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

Top Search Engines
• AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Bing (MSN), Google, Yahoo! Search

Pay Per Click Search Engines
• Google AdWords, MSN adCenter, Yahoo! Search Marketing

Meta Search Engines
• Dogpile, Excite, Mamma, MetaCrawler, WebCrawler

"Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images."

Text Links
* What are text links?
* What do text links have to do with search engines?
* How do text links improve search engine rankings?
* How do I get people to link to my web site?
* What is link traffic?
Here are some examples of the underlying HTML code for a text link:
homepage
Google
text links help search engines understand the topic of a link destination. Search engines spiders doesn't recognize text contained in images. Although there are ways to help spiders understand the content of image links (as explored in the Image Links guide), text links are the preferred method.
What is link traffic?
Link traffic is traffic generated by links to your website. So getting people to link to your website isn't just about improving search engine rankings. It also generates traffic.

Anchor Text (Variations, misspellings)
* What is anchor text?
* Should I vary the anchor text?
* Should I include misspellings in my anchor text?
* Britney Spears Spelling Correction
Anchor text is the visible, clickable descriptive text of a hyperlink, located in between the HTML anchor and tags.
For example:
anchor text
Should I vary the anchor text?
Yes, you should vary anchor text. This is because as search engine optimizers have learnt that anchor text helps improve search engine rankings they inevitably built incredible number of webpages that link to their websites using identical anchor text.
It may seem odd but it's actually a good idea to include misspellings in your anchor text, especially if the anchor text isn't easy to spell correctly.

Image Links (image maps, alt text)
* What are image links?
* What is "Alt Text"?
* What are image maps?
* Should I stay away from using image maps?
What are image links?
An image link is a graphic image that typically links to another online document, such as a webpage, PDF file, video, Excel spreadsheet, etc. Like text links, image links can also point to another location on the same page.
What is "Alt Text"?
Alt text is "alternative text" that is placed in the code for an image. It is displayed when the mouse cursor hovers over the image (fig. 1). The text is also visible if an image is unable to load (fig.2). Alt text is especially useful to people using screen readers.

What are image maps?
An image map is a graphic image containing one or more invisible clickable regions, called hotspots, allowing several hyperlinks from a single image.
For example, an image could be a map of the World with each continent split into different clickable hotspots. When a visitor clicks on one of the hotspots, they are taken to the respective online document.
Should I stay away from using image maps?
Many search engines will not crawl links inside an image map because of the potential for spam abuse. But that doesn't mean you should stay away from using image maps. To ensure search engines crawl the links contained with an image map, you should also duplicate the links as conventional text or image links somewhere else on the page and/or a sitemap.

PageRank (increase PageRank, attribute)
* What is PageRank?
* Are all pages in a website given the same PageRank?
* How do I check my website's PageRank?
* How do I increase a webpage's PageRank?
* Can I buy PageRank?
* What type of links increase PageRank?
* What type of links don't increase PageRank?
* What is the attribute?
* What is PageRank leakage?
* Should I use the to preserve PageRank?
* Are there links that can actually decrease PageRank?

What type of links increase PageRank?
PageRank is passed onto a webpage if the page with the outbound link uses HTML code that has a direct link to the link destination.
For example:
Outbound Link
What type of links don't increase PageRank?
PageRank is not passed on if the link doesn't point directly to the link destination. Examples of links that don't point directly to the link destination include most affiliate links, traffic tracking links, links that point to a webpage on the same website as the outbound link which then redirects the user to the link destination (this is often used to hide the real URL of the website it is linking to), and so on.
Other links that don't help increase PageRank are links from webpages that either has a PageRank rating of zero (for example, new webpages), or doesn't have a PageRank rating because Google's spider cannot crawl and index it. These include dynamically generated pages, such as search engine results pages (including paid inclusion pages), online databases, and password protected pages.
What is the attribute?
Adding the attribute to a hyperlink instructs search engine spiders not to crawl the link. The attribute was introduced in 2005 to help combat blog comment spam. The organizations that support the technique include, Blogger, blojsom, Blosxom, Buzznet, Flickr, Google, MSN (MSN Search, MSN Spaces), Scripting News, Six Apart (TypePad, MovableType, LiveJournal), WordPress, Yahoo! Search.
For example the following link:
This is a great site
Becomes:
I link to this site, but I'm not endorsing it
Be wary of websites trying to deprive you of PageRank by including the attribute in their link to your site.

Are there links that can actually decrease PageRank?
Yes! Google recommend that you avoid linking to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Link Popularity (authority pages, link quality, quantity, relevancy, reputation)
* What is link popularity?
* What is link quality?
* What is link relevancy?
* What is link reputation?
* How do I check my website's link popularity?
* Why do Google, Yahoo and MSN backlink stats vary so much?
* How do I increase link popularity?
* Should I get deep links to subpages?
* What are authority pages?
* What type of links don't increase link popularity?
Link popularity is a measure of the number of links pointing to a webpage, without any regard for the quality of the links.
What is link quality?
Link quality refers to the quality of a link which takes into account a number of factors, including the importance (i.e. PageRank) of the linking webpage, the relevance of the anchor text, and whether the linking webpage is of the same topic as the link destination.
What is link relevancy?
Link relevancy refers to getting relevant sites to link to yours. Here's what the Google Webmaster Guidelines recommends, and I quote:
When your site is ready:
• Have other relevant sites link to yours
Sounds obvious, right? Top ranked sites have hundreds, if not thousands, of links to their site. How many does yours have?
What is link reputation?
Link reputation refers to the quality or "importance" of the webpage providing the link. In general, PageRank could be used as a measurement of the reputation of a webpage.
How do I check my website's link popularity?
You can actually check the link popularity of every webpage in your site. The simplest method is to go to a search engine and enter "link:" followed by the URL you wish to check.
For example:
link:http://www.yoursite.com
link:http://www.yoursite.com/subdirectory/
link:http://www.yoursite.com/subpage.html

How do I increase link popularity?
You can increase link popularity by getting more websites to link to yours. Easier said than done, right? Well, try these link building strategies. Click on a topic for more information:
• Sitemaps - XML, Google, generators, Yahoo!
• Linkbait - create content and web tools to attract links
• Link Seeding - plant links in forums, blogs, web directories
• Sponsored Links - buy advertising on other websites
• Link Exchange - exchange links other websites
• Affiliate Links - set up a direct linking affiliate program
• Link Brokers - buy text links on other websites
Should I get deep links to subpages?
Yes. Every link to a webpage, be it the homepage or a subpage, is a good link. They all help increase PageRank, and drive traffic. Sometimes, it's more relevant for another website to link to a subpage so deep linking to subpages should always be welcomed.
What are authority pages?
Authority page are webpages that are considered an "authority" on a particular topic. In theory, links from authority pages are considered more valuable than links from other pages.
What type of links don't increase link popularity?
Similar to PageRank, if a link doesn't point directly to the link destination, search engines don't crawl and index the link and therefore don't count the link popularity. These include dynamically generated pages, such as search engine results, some web directory links, most affiliate links, traffic tracking links, links that point to a webpage on the same domain which then redirects the user to the link destination (to hide the real URL of the link), online databases, and password protected pages.

Sitemaps (XML, Google, generators, Yahoo!)
* What are sitemaps?
* What are HTML sitemaps?
* What are XML sitemaps?
* What is Google Sitemaps?
* Which sitemap formats does Google support?
* What is a sitemap generator?
* Can you recommend a sitemap generator?
* How do I validate my Google sitemap?
* How do I submit a sitemap to Google Sitemaps?
* What are text sitemaps?
* How do I submit a sitemap to Yahoo?
* Which sitemap formats does Yahoo! support?
* continue top of next column >>>

Sitemaps
* ...Sitemaps continued
* How do I submit a sitemap to MSN?
* Do sitemaps guarantee my webpages will be included in a search engine?
* Do sitemaps improve search engine rankings?
* Does the position of a URL in a Sitemap influence its use?
* Do I need to remove session IDs from URLs?
* Should I include the frameset URLs or the URLs of the frame contents?
What are sitemaps?
DEFINITION
Sitemaps and Site Maps are used interchangeably.
Sitemaps are used by webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. Search engine spiders usually discover webpages from links within a site and from other sites, but they sometimes don't index all pages, especially if a site has a large number of pages. Sitemaps supplement this data.
What are HTML sitemaps?
NOTICE
This page primarily discusses XML and text sitemaps that are supported by the major search engines; Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
A HTML sitemap is a collection of hyperlinks, sometimes with descriptions, on one page or spread across several pages. Sitemaps help visitors to find what they're looking quickly, while at the same time helping search engine spiders crawl and index all the pages within the site.
What are XML sitemaps?
In its simplest form, a XML sitemap (see Google Sitemap Protocol) is a XML file that lists URLs for a website. It may also include additional metadata about each URL (date of last update, how often the pages are updated, and how important it is relative to other URLs in the site) to better help search engines more intelligently crawl and index the website.

What is Google Sitemaps?
Google Sitemaps is a suite of webmaster tools offered by Google to provide webmasters a free and easy way to make their site more Google-friendly. Google Sitemaps shows you how Google crawls and indexes your site, and specific problems it might be having accessing it. You can also discover which search queries drive traffic to your site, and which version of Google is driving that traffic.
DEFINITION
RSS and Atom are XML formats for sharing content on the Web.
Which sitemap formats does Google support?
Google supports XML, RSS (Real Simple Syndication) 2.0, Atom 0.3 feeds, OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), and a text file containing a list of URLs.
What is a sitemap generator?
You could create a sitemap by hand by following the sitemap protocol, but it would be a really tedious task, and you will probably miss a few links. A better method is to use one of the many sitemap generators available. Google offer a free sitemap generator but it is probably too complicated for most people to install. The installation instructions certainly put me off giving it a try. Luckily there are plenty of downloadable and online sitemap generator tools offered by third-parties.
Can you recommend a sitemap generator?
I've only tried a few free, downloadable sitemap generators, but here are my opinions on those I've tested:
• G-Mapper is a Google and Yahoo sitemap generator for static website's of all sizes. The main problem with G-Mapper is that it doesn't give you the option of adding filters. You have to manually delete URLs after they've been crawled which is a real pain.
• Gsitemap is another sitemap generator tool. The main problem with Gsitemap is that it only generates Google sitemaps. It doesn't generate sitemaps for Yahoo!.
• GSiteCrawler is the sitemap generator I ended up using mainly because it offered all of the basic features, including Google sitemap and Yahoo! URL text file generator. But what sold me were the extra features that made it easy to use. For example, the "Import Robots.txt" feature meant I could quickly filter out all unwanted directories and pages with one click.

The other nice feature is that you can edit the metadata of one or more (individual or group) URLs at the same time, which is something not available in some of the other sitemap generators I tested. GSiteCrawler is free, although it does display a nag screen asking for a donation every so often.
The above applications are all for Windows computers only. Mac users may like to try Map-IT SiteMapper ($19.95 and also available for Windows) and RAGE Google Sitemap Automator ($29.95).
I found the above sitemap generators in Google's Sitemaps Third Party Programs & Websites guide. For a full list of the third-party sitemaps programs & websites, visit the Google page.
How do I validate my Google sitemap?
You can validate your Google XML sitemap with the Google Sitemap Validator by Validome. I'm glad I did as I discovered that the links to the Sitemaps.org XML schema in the sitemaps generated by GSiteCrawler were returning 404 not found errors. As a result I switched to the XML headers in Google's Using the Sitemap Protocol guide.
How do I submit a sitemap to Google Sitemaps?
Log in, or sign up, to Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account, and add your sitemap URLs.
What are text sitemaps?
A text sitemap is simply a text file with a list of URLs, one on each line, and is supported by Yahoo! Site Explorer. Unlike XML sitemaps, it does not allow for metadata about each URL.

How do I submit a sitemap to Yahoo?
Submit your sitemap to Yahoo! Site Explorer.
Which sitemap formats does Yahoo! support?
Yahoo! supports RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3, and a text file containing a list of URLs. The filename of the URL list file must be "urllist.txt". The filename for a compressed file must be "urllist.txt.gz". Site Explorer recognizes files with a .gz extension as compressed files and will decompress them before parsing.
Source: What kinds of feeds do you support?
How do I submit a sitemap to MSN?
Good question! No one seems to know. The best bet is try submitting your sitemap URL to the Windows Live Search URL Submission form.
Do sitemaps guarantee my webpages will be included in a search engine?
No. Sitemaps do not guarantee that webpages will be included in search engines, but they should help search engine spiders do a better job of finding and indexing every page within a site.
Do sitemaps improve search engine rankings?
No. Sitemaps will not influence the way your pages are ranked by a search engine. However, it does help to get them crawled and indexed, which gives your pages a better chance of being ranked.
Does the position of a URL in a Sitemap influence its use?
No.
Do I need to remove session IDs from URLs?
Yes. Session IDs in URLs may result in incomplete and redundant crawling of your site.
Should I include the frameset URLs or the URLs of the frame contents?
Include both URLs in your sitemap.
This document was written with the help of Sitemaps.org, the official sitemaps website sponsored by Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Visit the site for more technical information on sitemaps.

Linkbait
* What is linkbait?
* Is linkbait just about attracting links?
Linkbait is the internet marketing equivalent of fishing bait. Linkbait is simply content or web tools created specifically to entice people to link to from their website or blog, or tell others about it.
All content and web tools are linkable content you might say. Yes, to a certain extent that is true. But linkbait content is different. Linkbait content has to be better or different from the usual content to attract more than the usual share of links.
Examples of good Linkbait content include:
• Viral content, such as the hilarious Evolution of Dance video that's been viewed 36,758,020 (Dec. 13, 2006) times on the YouTube website.
• Controversial content
• Useful web tools, such as Alexaholic which allows you to compare the Alexa traffic rankings of up to 5 domains simultaneously. According to Yahoo!, Alexaholic has a whopping 17,493 links pointing to it (not including links from the Alexaholic domain itself), and the domain was set up as recently as February 2006.
• "How To" articles
• Top 10, 30, 50 lists
• 101 tips
• Inside knowledge
• "Cool" stuff

Is linkbait just about attracting links?
Yes and no. Links usually equals traffic, so attracting links is the main reason for creating linkbait content. But many web surfers don't actually have a website to post links to. As such, they might bookmark or tell others about it via an online bookmarking service, such as Digg or Del.icio.us.

Link Seeding (link spam)
* What is link seeding?
* Where can I seed links?
* What is link spam?
What is link seeding?
Link seeding refers to the process of proactively surfing the Web planting links in websites that allow direct linkage back to your site, in the hope of attract PageRank, as well as traffic from those sites
Where can I seed links?
You can plant free links in web directory listings, forum posts, forum signatures, blog posts, blog comment author links, discussion boards, product testimonials, guestbooks, and wikis.
You can also submit your links to search engines purely, but they will only attract traffic. The links won't provide any PageRank because search engine result pages are dynamically generated, and Google doesn't allocate PageRank to dynamically generated webpages.
DEFINITION
Link Spam is also known as Blog Spam and Comment Spam.
What is link spam?
Link spam is a much publicized form of spam that mainly targets blog commenting systems, but also forums, guestbooks, wikis (often called Wikispam) - in fact any website that allows people to freely post links.

Link Exchange
* What is link exchange?
* Should I exchange links with other websites?
* What type of websites should I exchange links with?
* What type of websites should I avoid exchanging links with?
* How do I find websites to exchange links with?
* Can my competitor harm my Google rankings by pointing thousands of links to my site, from a penalized or banned site?
* How do I know whether link exchange partners are still linking to my website?
* What are one way links?

Link exchange is the process of exchanging links with other websites.
Should I exchange links with other websites?
That depends on a number of factors. Before you decide on starting a reciprocal link exchange campaign, you must ask yourself these questions:
• Can I find more efficient ways to attract links to your website?
• Do I have the time and resources to commit to a link exchange campaign?
• Do I want to commit to a short-term or long-term link exchange campaign?
• How many links am I looking to exchange?
• How am I going to manage all of those link exchange partners?
What type of websites should I exchange links with?
The best websites to get links from are those with a high PageRank, and/or are of a similar topic to yours, and with few outbound links on the page. However, this is more difficult than it may sound. High PageRank sites typically don't exchange links - they don't need to.
That means websites similar to yours becomes the next most desirable sites to swap links with. Again this causes problems. It doesn't make sense to exchange links with your competition. After all, you don't want to send your visitors to their website, nor do you want to help improve their PageRank, and consequently search engine rankings!
You can still exchange links with sites that are similar to yours, but make sure they're not in direct competition with you. For example, if your website sells oil paintings, don't swap links with other sites that also sell oil paintings. Instead find art museums, water painting sites, art colleges, home decoration sites, etc., to exchange links with.
What type of websites should I avoid exchanging links with?
The main category of websites you should avoid swapping links with are what are commonly referred to in the SEO community as "bad neighborhoods" - sites which have been penalized or banned by the search engines.
There is no official source of "bad neighborhood" sites. But they do often fall into a number of categories, including:
• a PageRank rating of 2 or less -- Use the Google Toolbar to check a site's PageRank rating.
• the website is not indexed by the search engines -- To check if site has pages indexed in a particular search engine, simply go to the search engine and enter the following query into the search box:
site:www.potentiallinkexchangepartner.com
If no pages are found, then that could be an indication that the site has been penalized or banned by the search engine.
• the domain is 6 months or older -- Conduct a Whois search to find out the age of a domain. Relatively new sites can be forgiven for not having a PageRank rating or indexed by the search engines. But if a domain is 6 months or older, and it has a low PageRank and isn't indexed in the search engines, then it "could" mean that the site has been penalized or banned for some reason.

Having said all that, it is difficult to conclusively say whether a site has been penalized or banned by the search engines. The pointers above are simply a guide to whether you should exchange links with a site. The bottom line is that if a site looks genuine and you are happy to exchange links with it, then by all means go ahead. Don't take the advice given here as the deciding factor.
How do I find websites to exchange links with?
There are five main methods to finding reciprocal link partners:
1. Proactively surf the Web searching for websites to exchange links with. This is not the most practical or efficient method, so isn't really recommended. But if you really want to try this method, the easiest way to find link exchange partners is to approach all the sites that link to the competition. And you can find out who they are simply by going to a search engine such as Yahoo! Search and Microsoft's Bing Search and entering the following query into the search box:
link:www.yourcompetitorswebsite.com
The search engines will return a list of websites that link to your competitor's site. All you have to do is contact each site and either ask them to link to your site or, if they require a link back, a link exchange. In case you're wondering, you could also try the search in Google. The reason I didn't mention it above is because Google's filtering algorithm seems quite strict and pretty much filters out the majority of links.
2. Install a link exchange script on your site and wait for potential link exchange partners to submit their link exchange requests. This is the poor, lazy person's method of exchanging links. It's definitely worth trying if you can't afford the time or to outsource the link exchange campaign.
3. Use a link exchange software program to help you find and manage link exchange partners. This is probably the most popular method of finding link exchange partners as the software does much of the grunt work for you. All you have to do is instruct the software which types of sites you're looking for, decide which of the sites discovered by the software to email a link exchange request to, and add their link if they accept your offer. My favorite link exchange software program is Arelis, which has now been incorporated into the Internet Business Promoter suite of SEO tools.
4. Use an online link exchange database to find and manage reciprocal link partners. This is similar to the software method, except the number of link exchange partners is limited to sites who have signed up to the same service. Generally I would not recommend link exchange databases.

Also be careful to avoid link exchange services which create link pages that automatically include all the other sites within a category or links to sites unrelated to yours. The chances are you will end up with link pages with the same links as all the other sites using the service. This could get the page removed or even banned by the search engines for link spam.
5. Outsource the link exchange campaign to a professional link exchange company. This is the rich, lazy person's way to link exchange heaven. Simply find a company you like and purchase the link package that suits your budget. Make sure you tell them exactly the types of websites you want to exchange links with. Also set a deadline.

Can my competitor harm my Google rankings by pointing thousands of links to my site, from a penalized or banned site?
According to Google:
"There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index."
Note that Google doesn't rule out the possibility that a competitor could harm your site. As far as I know another website cannot harm your Google rankings simply by pointing links to your site. Imagine the havoc it would cause it was possible for someone to get a site penalized or banned in Google simply by pointing hundreds or thousands of links to it.

Sponsored Links (PageRank)
* What are Sponsored Links?
* Do Sponsored Links increase PageRank?
* Which websites offer Sponsored Links?

What are Sponsored Links?
Sponsored links are any links where the sponsor pays for placement. These advertisements are typically displayed above, and to the right of, search engine results or content. But they sometimes also appear below search results.
Google AdWords ads are labeled as "Sponsored Links", as shown here:

Yahoo Search Marketing ads use the "Sponsor Results" label:

While MSN Live Search ads use the "Sponsored Sites" heading:

Do Sponsored Links increase PageRank?
Sponsored Links such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN ads use long and sophisticated tracking links which don't get crawled by Google. As such no PageRank is passed along the link.
However, many websites sell sponsored text links which use short links that link directly to the sponsor's website. These types of links are usually crawled by Google and therefore do attract PageRank.
Which websites offer Sponsored Links?
Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter all offer Sponsored Links. Link brokers, such as Text Links Ads, also offer Sponsored Links, but of a different sort. Link brokers sell simple text links that link directly to your site, and therefore attracts PageRank. The linked anchor text is usually the keyword phrase you're trying to get top rankings for. However there is no accompanying description next to the link so they don't do as good a job of persuading people to click on your link.

Affiliate Links
* What are affiliate links?
* Do affiliate links increase PageRank?
What are affiliate links?
An affiliate link is the hyperlink code given to members of affiliate programs. The affiliate link is displayed in webpages, emails, text ads, etc., and used to track referrals.
Do affiliate links increase PageRank?
Generally no, because the majority of affiliate links point to an affiliate program script, which in turn redirects the user to the final landing page. PageRank is only passed on in direct links.
Here is an example affiliate link. If you click on it, you'll notice how it redirects you to a different website.
http://linkconnector.com/traffic_affiliate.php?lc=002143001313002778&atid=tlgaflk
In recent years some affiliate programs and affiliate networks have introduced a new type of link that links directly from affiliate websites to the merchant's site.
These "bare" links meant that affiliates would link directly to the merchant's website, thereby passing on any PageRank benefits to the merchant's landing page.
This is great for affiliate program owners, but gives affiliates nothing in return. Generally I would recommend sticking with standard affiliate links, if available.

Link Brokers (RON, ROS, Text Link Ads)
* What are link brokers?
* Should I buy text links via link brokers?
* Is it better to buy text links that are displayed on one page (usually the homepage) or across an entire site?
* Is Text Link Ads a reputable link broker?
Link brokers are websites that promote the buying and selling of text links. Technically speaking, text links are leased for a monthly fee, not bought. Link brokers make money by taking a cut of the leasing fee.
Should I buy text links via link brokers?
That depends. Link brokers offer a number of benefits, including:
• a large selection of websites
• websites sortable by various variables
• relevant site information available at a glance
• only having to deal with the link broker, as opposed to several website owners
• fixed prices - no negotiating skills required
Of course, there are downsides too, including:
• some useful site information, such as traffic and pageviews, may not available at a glance
• higher prices than you might pay if you purchased a link directly from a website
• you can't negotiate prices - they are fixed
• search engines "may" penalize sites that purchase links from sites within the network
You have to weigh up the pros and cons and decide for yourself whether you feel link brokers are a good place to buy text links. If you have limited time, or don't wish to go through all the trouble of finding sites and negotiating lower fees, then I think purchasing links via link brokers is a good idea.
The one real downside could be that search engines "may" put a penalty on sites, or outbound links from sites, within the network, thereby reducing the link popularity or PageRank benefit. Obviously, you still get the benefit of any traffic generated from the links.
DEFINITION
Run of Site (ROS) and Run of Network (RON) refers to advertisements appearing on all pages of a website, and network, respectively.
Is it better to buy text links that are displayed on one page (usually the homepage) or across an entire site?
That's a good question! Generally, the more backlinks the better so it makes sense to buy links that would be displayed on every page of a site, especially if it only costs a bit more than a single homepage link. However, this could be a waste of time, never mind money. Why? Let me explain.
Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote for page B, by page A, as stated in the PageRank guide. But this is an unnatural occurrence. No one would naturally "vote" for a page hundreds of times. So if Google finds hundreds (even thousands) of links from one source, it "could", and probably does, consider those links as an attempt to inflate the site's link popularity numbers, and as a result remove the PageRank benefits of all the links from the source.
If you check the link popularity of some websites that have obviously purchased a text link on a website as it appears on hundreds, even thousands, of pages, you'll probably notice that Google seems to index only a small percentage of all the links. Yahoo! Search and Microsoft's Bing Search on the other hand seem to index a far greater number of such links, as illustrated in this backlink screenshot.
As such, you may be better off simply buying one link, typically on the homepage, rather than run of site. I certainly think so.
Is Text Link Ads a reputable link broker?
Yes. Text Link Ads are one of the most reputable text link brokers around, with clients ranging from Fortune 500 firms to individual website owners. They offer thousands of text links for sale from hundreds of websites, starting from just $2 per month. Text Link Ads is a member of the Better Business Bureau and also a circle member of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization). I have heard nothing but good comments about Text Link Ads.

Natural Linking (artificial linking, link triangles, www or non-www)
* What is natural linking?
* What is artificial linking?
* What are link triangles?
* Is there any difference between linking virtually hosted domains and domains on dedicated IP addresses?
* Should I link to the www or non-www version of my domain?

result of website content creators trying to add value to their website.
Natural links:
• are surrounded by relevant text
• include a mixture of anchor text
• include a combination of homepage and deep links
• are usually built up slowly over time
• are from a wide variety of sources
• have a high ratio of links from subpages
• are not reciprocal

What is artificial linking?
Conversely, "artificial linking" are irrelevant or disguised links that add value to the link destination site, instead of the sites providing the links. These include paid links, link exchanges, "powered by" and "hosted by" links.
Artificial links:
• are surrounded by little or no relevant text
• are surrounded by navigation links
• typically have a high ratio of identical anchor text
• often are not in context with the webpage content
• typically point to the homepage
• spring up over a short period of time
• often come from a large number of webpages in a small number of sites
• have a high ratio of links from the homepage of websites
• are often reciprocal
• are at the bottom of the page

What are link triangles?
A link triangle is a concept devised to evade the detection of reciprocal linking patterns by search engines. With a link triangle, page A links to page B, page B links to page C, and page C links to page A, as illustrated below:

It is certainly an interesting concept, and one that may well fool the search engines if implemented properly with natural linking strategies.
Is there any difference between linking virtually hosted domains and domains on dedicated IP addresses?
None whatsoever according to Matt Cutts, head of the Google's Webspam team. Matt says, quote, "Links to virtually hosted domains are treated the same as links to domains on dedicated IP addresses."
Source: Myth busting: virtual hosts vs. dedicated IP addresses

DEFINITION
URL Canonicalization is the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices.

Should I link to the www or non-www version of my domain?
I would recommend picking the www version and always use that in internal and inbound links.
Do not think that www and non-www version of a domain is the same. For example, most people would probably consider these URLs to be the same:
• www.yoursite.com
• www.yoursite.com/index.html
• yoursite.com
• yoursite.com/index.html
Technically they are all different. I have often encountered the dreaded "cannot find server" error message when entering the non-www version of a domain name into a web browser, only for the site to appear when I try the www version.
Make sure your webmaster sets up your site so that it appears when someone visits either the www or non-www version of the domain.
I often come across internal homepage links pointing to various URLs, including:
• index.html
• yoursite.com
• yoursite.com/index.html
• www.yoursite.com/index.html
Stick to one URL, such as www.yoursite.com, instead of all those variations above.
Source: SEO advice: url canonicalization

Broken Links (link rot, broken link testing)
* What are broken links?
* What is linkrot?
* How often should I check for broken links?
* What are the most popular broken links testing software?

Broken links are text hyperlinks that typically links to another online document, such as a webpage, PDF file, video, Excel spreadsheet, etc. which when clicked doesn't lead to the correct destination.
Broken links can include clickable image links and links to images.

DEFINITION
Link Rot and Linkrot are used interchangeably

What is Link Rot?
Link Rot is the process by which links on a website become irrelevant as webpages and files being linked to disappear, change content, or redirect to a new location.
How often should I check for broken links?
Probably every day in an ideal world. But that would take up too much time. I would suggest you check for broken links at least once a month
What are the most popular broken links testing software?
My favorite tool for finding broken links is Xenu's Link Sleuth, which runs on Windows PC and is 100% free. Link verification is carried out on normal links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and Java applets. It displays a continuously updated list of URLs which you can sort by different criteria.
Additional features include:
• Can re-check broken links (useful for temporary network errors)
• Supports SSL websites - https://
• Detects and reports redirected URLs
• Creates site maps
• Reports can be emailed
• Partial testing of FTP and gopher sites
If you would like to recommend similar broken link checkers, which is also free, especially one for Mac users, please post it below.

SEO SEM Checklist

2009-10-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

On-Page SEO Checklist
Always start with keyword selection, research and testing
Title tags
Meta tags
ALT tags
H1 tags
URL structure
Internal Linking
Content
Keyword density
Site maps
Usability
Track target keywords
Expect results in 12 months

Do not make common on-page SEO mistakes:
Duplicate content
URL variants on the same pages
Off-site images and content on-site
Duplicate title tags

Do not use on-page SEO spamming tactics such as:
Hidden text
Hidden links
Keyword repetition
Doorway pages
Mirror pages
Cloaking

Off-Page SEO Checklist
Always start with keyword research, testing and selection
Keywords in links
Links from high ranking publisher sites
One-way inbound links (not link exchange)
Different keywords in your link-ads from the same site
Gradual link building technology (no growth spikes)
Relevant keywords near your inbound link
Deep linking (from multiple pages to multiple pages)
Target a large list of keywords (5-500+)
Link from sites with a variety of LinkRanks
Track active link-ad keywords
Discontinue campaigns if ranking does not improve
Expect results in 30 days (MSN) 1-9 months (Google, Yahoo)

Do not make common off-page SEO mistakes:
Duplicate keywords in link-ads
Site-wide links causing link growth spikes
Using on-page SEOs to do specialist off-page SEO
Placing random links without keywords near your link-ad

Do not use off-page SEO spamming tactics such as:
Link farms (sites with 100+ outbound links per page)
Using irrelevant keywords in your link-ads
Garbage links
Link churning
Hidden inbound links

SEO SEM Glossary

2009-10-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

advertising network: A service where ads are bought centrally through one company, and displayed on multiple Web sites that contract with that company for a share of revenue generated by ads served on their site.

algorithm: The technology that a search engine uses to deliver results to a query. Search engines utilize several algorithms in tandem to deliver a page of search results or keyword-targeted search ads.

anchor text: The clickable text part of a hyperlink. The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page being linked to is about.

click through rate (CTR): The rate (expressed in a percentage) at which users click on an ad. This is calculated by dividing the total number of clicks by the total number of ad impressions. CTR is an important metric for Internet marketers to measure the performance of an ad campaign.

content network: A group of Web sites that agree to show ads on their site, served by an ad network, in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by those ads. For example: Google AdSense or the Yahoo Publisher Network.

contextual advertising: Advertising that is targeted to a Web page based on the page's content, keywords, or category. Ads in most content networks are targeted contextually.

cost per action (CPA): A form of advertising where payment is dependent upon an action that a user performs as a result of the ad. The action could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or asking for a follow-up call. An advertiser pays a set fee to the publisher based on the number of visitors who take action. Many affiliate programs use the CPA model.

cost per click (CPC): Also called Pay per Click (PPC). A performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set fee for every click on an ad. The majority of text ads sold by search engines are billed under the CPC model.

cost per thousand (CPM): An ad model that charges advertisers every time an ad is displayed to a user, whether the user clicks on the ad or not. The fee is based on every 1,000 ad impressions (M is the Roman numeral for 1,000). Most display ads, such as banner ads, are sold by CPM.

geo-targeting: Delivery of ads specific to the geographic location of the searcher. Geo-targeting allows the advertiser to specify where ads will or won't be shown based on the searcher's location, enabling more localized and personalized results.

Googlebot: Google uses several user-agents to crawl and index content in the Google.com search engine. Googlebot describes all Google spiders. All Google bots begin with "Googlebot"; for example, Googlebot-Mobile: crawls pages for Google’s mobile index; Googlebot-Image: crawls pages for Google’s image index.

inbound link: An inbound link is an hyperlink to a particular Web page from an outside site, bringing traffic to that Web page. Inbound links are an important element that most search engine algorithms use to measure the popularity of a Web page.

invisible web: A term that refers to the vast amount of information on the web that isn't indexed by search engines. Coined in 1994 by Dr. Jill Ellsworth.

keyword: A word or phrase entered into a search engine in an effort to get the search engine to return matching and relevant results. Many Web sites offer advertising targeted by keywords, so an ad will only show when a specific keyword is entered.

link bait: Editorial content, often sensational in nature, posted on a Web page and submitted to social media sites in hopes of building inbound links from other sites. Or, as Matt Cutts of Google says, "something interesting enough to catch people's attention."

link building: The process of getting quality Web sites to link to your Web site, in order to improve search engine rankings. Link building techniques can include buying links, reciprocal linking, or entering barter arrangements.

meta tags: Information placed in the HTML header of a Web page, providing information that is not visible to browsers, but can be used in varying degrees by search engines to index a page. Common meta tags used in search engine marketing are title, description, and keyword tags.

pay per click (PPC): See Cost per Click (CPC).

quality score: A score assigned by search engines that is calculated by measuring an ad's clickthrough rate, analyzing the relevance of the landing page, and considering other factors used to determine the quality of a site and reward those of higher quality with top placement and lower bid requirements. Some factors that make up a quality score are historical keyword performance, the quality of an ad's landing page, and other undisclosed attributes. All of the major search engines now use some form of quality score in their search ad algorithm.

return on investment (ROI): The amount of money an advertiser earns from their ads compared to the amount of money the advertiser spends on their ads.

search advertising: Also called Paid Search. An advertiser bids for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword. These are usually text ads, which are displayed above or to the right of the algorithmic (organic) search results. Most search ads are sold by the PPC model, where the advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link.

search engine marketing (SEM): The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and search advertising, or paid search.

search engine optimization (SEO): The process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases.

search engine results pages (SERPs): The page searchers see after they've entered their query into the search box. This page lists several Web pages related to the searcher's query, sorted by relevance. Increasingly, search engines are returning blended search results, which include images, videos, and results from specialty databases on their SERPs.

social media: A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction.

spider: A search engine spider is a program that crawls the Web, visiting Web pages to collect information to add to or update a search engine's index. The major search engines on the Web all have such a program, which is also known as a "crawler" or a "bot."

title tag: An HTML meta tag with text describing a specific Web page. The title tag should contain strategic keywords for the page, since many search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing pages. The title tag should also make sense to humans, since it is usually the text link to the page displayed in search engine results.

universal search: Also known as blended, or federated search results, universal search pulls data from multiple databases to display on the same page. Results can include images, videos, and results from specialty databases like maps and local information, product information, or news stories.

Web 2.0: A term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies.

Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the visible text for a hyperlink. For example:

< a href="http://www.seo-help.com/" >This is the anchor text< /a >

ATW

Abbreviation for AllTheWeb, a search engine powered by FAST.

Back Link

Any link on another page that points to the subject page. Also called inbound links or IBLs.

Bot

Abbreviation for robot (also called a spider). It refers to software programs that scan the web. Bots vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.

Cloaking

Cloaking describes the technique of serving a different page to a search engine spider than what a human visitor sees. This technique is abused by spammers for keyword stuffing. Cloaking is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

Conversion

Conversion refers to site traffic that follows through on the goal of the site (such as buying a product on-line, filling out a contact form, registering for a newsletter, etc.). Webmasters measure conversion to judge the effectiveness (and ROI) of PPC and other advertising campaigns. Effective conversion tracking requires the use of some scripting/cookies to track visitors actions within a website. Log file analysis is not sufficient for this purpose.

CPC

Abbreviation for Cost Per Click. It is the base unit of cost for a PPC campaign.

CTA

Abbreviation for Content Targeted Ad(vertising). It refers to the placement of relevant PPC ads on content pages for non-search engine websites.

CTR

Abbreviation for Click Through Rate. It is a ratio of clicks per impressions in a PPC campaign.

Doorway Page

Also called a gateway page. A doorway page exists solely for the purpose of driving traffic to another page. They are usually designed and optimized to target one specific keyphrase. Doorway pages rarely are written for human visitors. They are written for search engines to achieve high rankings and hopefully drive traffic to the main site. Using doorway pages is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

FFA

Abbreviation for Free For All. FFA sites post large lists of unrelated links to anyone and everyone. FFA sites and the links they provide are basically useless. Humans do not use them and search engines minimize their importance in ranking formulas.

Gateway Page

Also called a doorway page. A gateway page exists solely for the purpose of driving traffic to another page. They are usually designed and optimized to target one specific keyphrase. Gateway pages rarely are written for human visitors. They are written for search engines to achieve high rankings and hopefully drive traffic to the main site. Using gateway pages is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

Google Dance

Up to June, 2003, Google has updated the index for their search engine on a roughly monthly basis. While the update is in progress, search results for each of Google's nine datacenters are different. The positions of a site appears to "dance" as it fluctuates minute to minute. "Google dance" is an unofficial term coined to refer to the period when Google is performing the update to its index. Google may be changing their index calculation method to allow for a continuous update (which will effectively end the roughly monthly dances).

IBL

Abbreviation for In Bound Link. Any link on another page that points to the subject page. Also called a back link.

Ink

Abbreviation for Inktomi, the back-end search engine acquired by Yahoo. The Inktomi search engine is being phased out as Yahoo built a new search engine incorporating Inktomi's technology with elements of Yahoo's other search acquisitions.

Keyword/Keyphrase

Keywords are words which are used in search engine queries. Keyphrases are multi-word phrases used in search engine queries. SEO is the process of optimizing web pages for keywords and keyphrases so that they rank highly in the results returned for search queries.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of adding superfluous keywords to a web page. The words are added for the 'benefit' of search engines and not human visitors. The words may or may not be visible to human visitors. While not necessarily a violation of search engine Terms of Service, at least when the words are visible to humans, it detracts from the impact of a page (it looks like spam). It is also possible that search engines may discount the importance of large blocks of text that do not conform to grammatical structures (ie. lists of disconnected keywords). There is no valid reason for engaging in this practice.

Link Farm

A link farm is a group of separate, highly interlinked websites for the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). Engaging in a link farm is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

Mirror

In SEO parlance, a mirror is a near identical duplicate website (or page). Mirrors are commonly used in an effort to target different keywords/keyphrases. Using mirrors is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

PFI

Abbreviation for Pay For Inclusion. Many search engines offer a PFI program to assure frequent spidering / indexing of a site (or page). PFI does not guarantee that a site will be ranked highly (or at all) for a given search term. It just offers webmasters the opportunity to quickly incorporate changes to a site into a search engine's index. This can be useful for experimenting with tweaking a site and judging the resultant effects on the rankings.

Portal

Designation for websites that are either authoritative hubs for a given subject or popular content driven sites (like Yahoo) that people use as their homepage. Most portals offer significant content and offer advertising opportunities for relevant sites.

PPC

Abbreviation for Pay Per Click. An advertising model where advertisers pay only for the traffic generated by their ads.

PR

Abbreviation for PageRank - Google's trademark for their proprietary measure of link popularity for web pages. Google offers a PR viewer on their Toolbar.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a file which well behaved spiders read to determine which parts of a website they may visit.

Scumware

Scumware is a generic/catch-all label that applies to software that:

* Installs itself secretly, dishonestly or without consent
* Does not allow for easy uninstallation / removal
* Monitors or tracks users actions without the users awareness or consent (aka spyware)
* Alters the behavior/default options of other programs without the users consent or awareness (aka thiefware)

SEM

Abbreviation for Search Engine Marketing. SEM encompasses SEO and search engine paid advertising options (banners, PPC, etc.)

SEO

Abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. SEO covers the process of

* making web pages spider friendly (so search engines can read them)
* making web pages relevant to desired keyphrases

SERP

Abbreviation for Search Engine Results Page/Positioning. This refers to the organic (excluding paid listings) search results for a given query.

Spam

In the SEO vernacular, this refers to manipulation techniques that violate search engines Terms of Service and are designed to achieve higher rankings for a web page. Obviously, spam could be grounds for banning. Alan Perkins has published an excellent white paper on Search Engine Spam that is highly recommended. Here are some definitions of spam from the search engines themselves:

* Google
* Yahoo
* MSN

Spamdexing

Spamdexing was describes the efforts to spam a search engine's index. Spamdexing is a violation of the Terms Of Service of most search engines and could be grounds for banning.

Spider

Also called a bot (or robot). Spiders are software programs that scan the web. They vary in purpose from indexing web pages for search engines to harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers.

A refers to either a continuous loop where spiders are requesting pages and the server is requesting data to render the page or an intentional scheme designed to identify (and "ban") spiders that do not respect robots.txt.

Splash Page

Splash pages are introduction pages to a web site that are heavy on graphics (or flash video) with no textual content. They are designed to either impress a visitor or complement some corporate branding.

Stop Word

Stop words are words that are ignored by search engines when indexing web pages and processing search queries. Common words such as the.

www2/www3/www-xx

Google dance watchers use these terms as short-hand to refer to Google's different datacenters. You can add .google.com to the end of them to visit the data center that corresponds to the term.

Incremental CPC
"incremental clicks" is (change in cost/change in clicks = incremental CPC).

8 Most Popular and Useful Google Commands and Operators

2009-09-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

1. Site: The Google site command will show you all the URL’s within the domain you specify. This allows you to see all of the pages that Google has indexed within your site. Not only will this command show you the exact URL’s that are indexed but it will also give you the total number of pages that are indexed by Google. Just type in the Google search, site:yourdomain.com to get this information.

2. Related: this is probably one of my favorite Google commands for link building purposes. If you type in related:yourdomain.com, the search results will show you a wide range of related websites that contain the same keywords as your site. This is helpful when it’s time to find relevant websites for link building.

3. cache: The cache:yourdomain.com will show you all of the URL’s from your site that Google currently has in it’s cache from the last time it crawled and indexed your site.

4. Allintitle: The allintitle command, allintitle:wood working will show you all of the URL’s that contain both of those keywords in the title of a web page.

5. AllinURL: The command, allinURL:wood working is similar to the allintitle command except that it looks for and will show you results of that keyword in a domain only.

6. Link: The link command is one of the more popular and useful commands. If you search for link:petfood.com, Google will show you a good majority of the webpages that have links pointing to the specified domain.

7. Info: The info command will show you information about a particular domain. The information such as Google cache, webpages that are similar, webpages that link to your domain, webpages that you link to and webpages that actually contain your domain name listed. So this is almost a one-stop-shop for a few of the most useful Google commands.

8. Define: Another cool command for link building – if you’re looking for related websites for a particular keyword, you can type in quotation marks around your keyword like this: “Iams cat food”, and a list of websites will show that contain that exact keyword.

SEO Terminology Glossary

2009-09-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

50 Search Engine Optimization Definitions Every Advertiser Should Know: A SEO Terminology Glossary

Let’s face it, when it comes to SEO there are many terms that sound like they come from a foreign world. Whether you are new to search engine optimization (SEO) or looking to hire an agency, it is important to understand the industry lingo. SEO-speak can get pretty technical, I often get lost myself! But learning these 50 core SEO terms will get you a long way to understanding how the process works.

* 301 Redirect – A means of forwarding content that has been moved permanently from an old URL to a new one automatically. It will prevent a webpage from losing traffic or PageRank that is associated with an old URL. The 301 redirect will automatically forward or redirect that traffic to the updated URL.
* 404 Error – The 404 or Not Found error message is an HTTP response code that says the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested, or it was configured not to fulfill the request. A 404 error page occurs when the URL of a page is moved and not redirected or when the URL is removed altogether.
* Alexa Rank – A free web toolbar service that provides web masters with information about a sites traffic. Alexa collects internet usage data from toolbar users, which contributed to the Alexa Rank.
* Anchor Text – A visible link active within text, commonly referred to as a hyperlink. It usually gives users a relevant, contextual description of the content of the links location. The words used in anchor text play a role in keyword rankings.
* Algorithm – The mathematical criteria search engines use to determine a web pages relevancy for certain search words or phrases.
* Backlinks – Links that are coming into a website from another website or web page. The number of backlinks on a webpage is an indication to search engines the popularity or importance of that website or page. Also known as incoming links, inbound links, in links, and inward links.
* Black Hat SEO – The search engine optimization practice of using unethical or unfair techniques (i.e. keyword stuffing, link spamming) to improve website rankings. Sites that practice black hat methods run the risk of being penalized or banned by Google.
* Bot – Nickname for the Googlebot, the search software used by Google to crawl, index and serve web content.
* Canonical Tag – A code snippet used to tell search engines what URL is the original or “canonical” version of your webpage. Search engines use this as a guide for what URL to crawl and index, especially when duplicate pages exist.
* Cache – The archived copy of a webpage that was indexed by a search engine. The cached version of a webpage is a copy of the page that is saved on search engine servers.
* Competing Pages – The number of pages that rank for a given keyword in search engine results pages (SERPs). Found in the upper right-hand corner of the Google SERPs (i.e. Results 1 – 10 of about 1,450,000 for example keyword).
* Crawl – An automated, computerized algorithm hosted by search engines that browses the web. The programs create a copy of each webpage for future indexing by the search engines. Also known as web crawl.
* Internal Links (Cross-Links) – A link or hyperlink from one webpage to another within the same website or domain. Usually internal links work in a hierarchal structure, with the most internal links to the most important pages.
* Duplicate Content – Refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that are identical or exact duplicates. In many cases this is not malicious or deceptive.
* External Links – A link or hyperlink from one webpage to another on a different website or domain. External links point to your site but do not reside on your domain.
* Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) – A free service provided by Google for webmasters. It allows webmasters to understand the sites indexing and visibility on the web, as well as identify any search engine crawl errors.
* Header Tags – HTML code used to format text, define a page’s organizational structure, and simplify navigation— code appears as an

through

. For SEO, the header tags are a source for keyword optimization, which can help a page rank better on some search engines.
* HTML Sitemap – A text version of your sitemap that is a bulleted outline of your sites navigation, with anchor text linking to each age. Provided on a website to aid in user navigation. It is also used to guide search engine bots through a website.
* Alt Text Attribute – The image alternate (ALT) attribute is considered a text equivalent for a non-text element. It is recognized by search engines as an alternative text description to an image, since crawlers cannot otherwise ‘read’ image content.
* Indexing – The process of search engines collecting, parsing, and storing webpage content for fast, relevant and accurate retrieval.
* Keyword Optimization – The process of incorporating target keywords or phrases into metadata, images and on-page content to improve search engine rankings for that keyword of phrase.
* Keyword Stuffing – Considered a black hat method for SEO, keyword stuffing is a technique used to increase a web page’s rankings by hiding text so it will not be seen by a visitor, but it will be crawled and indexed by search engines. Practices include hiding text behind and image, small text, and making the background the same color as the copy. Websites that participate in keyword stuffing will be removed from the Google index.
* Linkbait – Any website activity that encourages or attracts links from other websites. It can include contests, newsworthy information, giveaways, tools, and other compelling content. It is an important practice in SEO because the backlinks to a website factor into search engine rankings,
* Link Building – The practice of increasing the number of relevant in-links on a website or specific webpage with the goal of increasing search engine rankings and website traffic.
* Metadata – Located in the header section of a web pages source code, metadata was is intended to provide information about a website’s content. Includes robots, title, description and keywords.
* Meta Description – A part of the metadata, it is located within the code header and appears as the webpage description in organic search engine results. The description is used to describe the webpage content to search engine crawlers. The meta description can be up to 160 characters.
* Meta Keywords – A part of the metadata, it is used to list the keywords that are relevant to the content on your page. The meta keywords tag used to have significance to search engine rankings.
* Meta Robots – A part of the meta data, the robots are used to control search engine crawling activity at the page level. For site-level search engine controlling, use the robots.txt file.
* Meta Title – A part of the metadata, it is located within the code header and appears at the top of a search window. It is also the hyperlinked title in organic search results. The meta title is an important element in declaring the content on a page to crawlers and potential visitors. Each meta title is between 50-60 characters and should be unique to the content on the page.
* NoFollow – A meta tag that tells search engines that a page can be crawled and indexed, but the search engines will not follow any outgoing links, and no PageRank flows from that page.
* NoIndex – A meta tag that allows search engines to crawl a page and give it PageRank, however the search engines do not to index the page, and it will not show up in the search results.
* NOODP – A meta tag, , used to opt a page out of listing in the DMOZ open directory project.
* NOYDIR – A meta tag, , specifically used to prevent the search engines from displaying a page title and meta description in the Yahoo! Directory.
* Organic (Natural) Search Results – Non-paid search engine results located below all sponsored (or pay-per-click) advertising on a search engine results page.
* Page Rank (PR) – According to Google, “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.
* Page Rank Sculpting – The practice of guiding search engines to pages of your site that have more value more over others, by adding in nofollow tags, consolidated links, and other elements on pages that are of lesser value. Due to changes to the Google algorithm in 2009, it is believed that PageRank sculpting with the use of nofollow tags no longer works to help flow more PageRank to the more valuable pages of your site.
* Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – A method of advertising where the advertiser pays for each click he receives on the search engines.
* Rankability Score – A statistical guide used for keyword selection, calculated by taking the search volume divided by the number of competing pages. The rankability score is a guide to help identify keywords that statistically show greater potential for achieving rankings quickly
* Ranking – According to an algorithm, a search engine will determine which page content retrieved for a search is the most relevant. It will list (rank) each web page in order of relevancy.
* Reciprocal Link – Mutual external link between two different websites. This is a large practice of link building in SEO, but it is also controversial. A reciprocal link can help a website’s Page Rank if the linked content is relevant. However, excessive reciprocal linking and link farms can hurt a website.
* Robots.txt – A text file that instructs the search engine bots which directory paths and pages should and shouldn’t be crawled. Any pages blocked by search engines in the robots.txt file will not pass PageRank.
* Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – An umbrella term that includes any form of internet marketing that promotes a websites visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs)— including, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, display advertising, and contextual advertising.
* SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – A form of internet marketing that can effectively increase organic search engine placement, site traffic and qualified leads to a website.
* Search Engine Results Page (SERP) – The results a user sees in the search engines after typing in a search query. The results would consist of a series of Organic ads as well as Paid or sponsored search ads.
* Search Query – A basic search query is a keyword or a keyword phrase a user enters when searching on any search engine.
* Social Media – Many definitions exist, but according the Wikipedia, “social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one-to-many) into social media dialogues (many-to-many).”
* Spiders – Similar to the Googlebot, a spider automatically crawls content on the web and feeds the pages to search engines.
* White Hat SEO – The ethical and fair practice of search engine optimization on a website.
* XML Sitemap – An XML sitemap lists URLs for a site so that search engines can more intelligently crawl a website. Sitemaps include instructions for the search engines telling them the relative importance of the page (homepage being the highest), the estimated frequency of updates (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) and most importantly the exact URL structure for your website’s pages.
* Yahoo! Site Explorer – A free tool that allows web masters to explore web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search, including, the most popular pages from any site, sitemaps, and webpage links.

SEO Copywriting Example 350 Words

2009-09-03T01:01:00.001-07:00

SEO Copywriting Example 350 Words

SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text.

The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called "doorway pages") that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques.

Practitioners of the search engine copywriting method recommend around 250 viewable words per page, with one, or at most two, targeted search terms strategically placed within the text and other on-page elements.

SEO Copywriting strengths
One thing that can be said about search engine optimization copywriting is that works for suitable websites and for suitable search terms (see below). SEO Copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines, although no page can do equally well in all engines.

It is sometimes said by practioners of search engine optimization copywriting, that the method tends to maintain its rankings as the engines tweak and change their algorithms, whereas other methods produce less stable rankings. This can't be true. If 2 pages are in the top 10 search results; one getting there by the SEO copywriting method and the other by different search engine optimization techniques, they are both there because they match the engine's criteria (algorithm) quite well. When the criteria is changed, the match that each of them had is necessarily changed. The matches could become closer to, or further from, the engine's criteria. Whether each page goes up or down in the results depends on what changes have been made to the engine's criteria. It is a matter of chance, and not a matter of whether SEO copywriting was used or not.

SEO Copywriting weaknesses
# Competitive search terms
The technique only works for search terms that are not particularly competitive. Competitive search terms are those where many people are trying very hard to gain the top rankings for their sites. Casino, sex, insurance, health and hotels sites are among the most competitive, and there are many other topics where people fight for rankings. For medium to highly competitive search terms, other, more vigorous, methods are needed.

# Suitable sites
Not all websites are suitable for SEO Copywriting. Many simply don't have sufficient text on their pages, and adding text would spoil the design or nature of the sites. Also, some sites that do have sufficient text sometimes don't want to be forced into changing what is written on the pages, just for the sake of the search engines.

# Cost, and the limitation of targeted search terms
SEO Copywriting is a time-consuming process, and professional SEO copywriters are not cheap, therefore the cost of each page is significant. Since each page can target only one or two search terms, it would usually require a good number of pages to be made-over in order to target all the required search terms.

# Tied to a copywriter
What happens when a website owner finds it necessary to alter the text on a page that has been worked on by a professional SEO copywriter? It can't be done without either ruining the costly SEO work and, with it, the page's rankings, or re-hiring a professional copywriter to redo the work once the changes have been made.

# Slipping in the rankings
If a page is successfully optimized by SEO Copywriting, and is ranked in the top 10 search results for its targeted search term, then the optimization was worth the cost. But what happens when someone else decides to optimize a page from a different website for the same search term? If their optimization technique is successful, and the page gets into the top 10, the #10 page will slip to #11 - and off the first page of results. Then suppose another website does the same thing...and another...and another. Sooner or later, the successful page will slip from the first page of search results. As soon as people decide to optimize their pages for the chosen search terms, existing top 10 pages are on the way down. Then what?

If the sliding pages were professionally SEO copywritten, there is nothing else that the technique can do for them, or if it can, the whole costly copywriting process must be redone. Adding one or two instances of the target search terms isn't merely a case of typing them in somewhere, because the final text still needs to read well for the site visitors. Again, the website owner is tied to a copywriter.

Summary
SEO Copywriting is good when:-

* there are not many search terms to target
* the search terms are on the low to middle end of competitiveness
* money isn't a problem, or if it is your own website
* you don't mind the text on your pages being frozen (if money does matter)

Otherwise, 'search engine friendly' techniques should always be done as a first measure, and real search engine optimization should be done for the search terms for which 'search engine friendly' techniques are unsuccessful.

Example website
http://www.athena-solutions.com/services-readiness-assess.shtml
Athena IT Solutions - SEO copywriting helped this Boston-area consulting firm achieve high rankings for several popular key phrases. The firm offers assessments, and keyword research showed that people search using the phrases data warehouse assessment, data warehouse project assessment, business intelligence assessment, and business intelligence project assessment. Judicious use of the title tag and sub-navigation throughout the site helped the page achieve a first page rank on Google and Yahoo for all four phrases.

Example:
http://www.elderlawmaine.com/ckmain.htm
http://www.athena-solutions.com/services-readiness-assess.shtml
http://www.ecopywriters.com/resources/seo-copywriting-example-350-words.html

SEO Copywriting Example 350 Words

2009-09-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

SEO Copywriting Example 350 Words

SEO Copywriting usually optimizes other on-page elements for the targeted search terms. These include the Title, Description and Keywords tags, headings and alt text.

The idea behind SEO Copywriting is that search engines want genuine content pages and not additional pages (often called "doorway pages") that are created for the sole purpose of achieving high rankings. Therefore, the engines cannot possibly view SEO copywritten pages as undesirable, and the rankings they achieve tend to be as stable as those that are achieved by other search engine optimization techniques.

Practitioners of the search engine copywriting method recommend around 250 viewable words per page, with one, or at most two, targeted search terms strategically placed within the text and other on-page elements.

SEO Copywriting strengths
One thing that can be said about search engine optimization copywriting is that works for suitable websites and for suitable search terms (see below). SEO Copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines, although no page can do equally well in all engines.

It is sometimes said by practioners of search engine optimization copywriting, that the method tends to maintain its rankings as the engines tweak and change their algorithms, whereas other methods produce less stable rankings. This can't be true. If 2 pages are in the top 10 search results; one getting there by the SEO copywriting method and the other by different search engine optimization techniques, they are both there because they match the engine's criteria (algorithm) quite well. When the criteria is changed, the match that each of them had is necessarily changed. The matches could become closer to, or further from, the engine's criteria. Whether each page goes up or down in the results depends on what changes have been made to the engine's criteria. It is a matter of chance, and not a matter of whether SEO copywriting was used or not.

SEO Copywriting weaknesses
# Competitive search terms
The technique only works for search terms that are not particularly competitive. Competitive search terms are those where many people are trying very hard to gain the top rankings for their sites. Casino, sex, insurance, health and hotels sites are among the most competitive, and there are many other topics where people fight for rankings. For medium to highly competitive search terms, other, more vigorous, methods are needed.

# Suitable sites
Not all websites are suitable for SEO Copywriting. Many simply don't have sufficient text on their pages, and adding text would spoil the design or nature of the sites. Also, some sites that do have sufficient text sometimes don't want to be forced into changing what is written on the pages, just for the sake of the search engines.

# Cost, and the limitation of targeted search terms
SEO Copywriting is a time-consuming process, and professional SEO copywriters are not cheap, therefore the cost of each page is significant. Since each page can target only one or two search terms, it would usually require a good number of pages to be made-over in order to target all the required search terms.

# Tied to a copywriter
What happens when a website owner finds it necessary to alter the text on a page that has been worked on by a professional SEO copywriter? It can't be done without either ruining the costly SEO work and, with it, the page's rankings, or re-hiring a professional copywriter to redo the work once the changes have been made.

# Slipping in the rankings
If a page is successfully optimized by SEO Copywriting, and is ranked in the top 10 search results for its targeted search term, then the optimization was worth the cost. But what happens when someone else decides to optimize a page from a different website for the same search term? If their optimization technique is successful, and the page gets into the top 10, the #10 page will slip to #11 - and off the first page of results. Then suppose another website does the same thing...and another...and another. Sooner or later, the successful page will slip from the first page of search results. As soon as people decide to optimize their pages for the chosen search terms, existing top 10 pages are on the way down. Then what?

If the sliding pages were professionally SEO copywritten, there is nothing else that the technique can do for them, or if it can, the whole costly copywriting process must be redone. Adding one or two instances of the target search terms isn't merely a case of typing them in somewhere, because the final text still needs to read well for the site visitors. Again, the website owner is tied to a copywriter.

Summary
SEO Copywriting is good when:-

* there are not many search terms to target
* the search terms are on the low to middle end of competitiveness
* money isn't a problem, or if it is your own website
* you don't mind the text on your pages being frozen (if money does matter)

Otherwise, 'search engine friendly' techniques should always be done as a first measure, and real search engine optimization should be done for the search terms for which 'search engine friendly' techniques are unsuccessful.

Example website
http://www.athena-solutions.com/services-readiness-assess.shtml
Athena IT Solutions - SEO copywriting helped this Boston-area consulting firm achieve high rankings for several popular key phrases. The firm offers assessments, and keyword research showed that people search using the phrases data warehouse assessment, data warehouse project assessment, business intelligence assessment, and business intelligence project assessment. Judicious use of the title tag and sub-navigation throughout the site helped the page achieve a first page rank on Google and Yahoo for all four phrases.

Example:
http://www.elderlawmaine.com/ckmain.htm
http://www.athena-solutions.com/services-readiness-assess.shtml
http://www.ecopywriters.com/resources/seo-copywriting-example-350-words.html

On Page SEO Services

2009-09-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

On Page SEO Services
Keyword Analysis
Content Fixing
Keyword Density and Proximity
W3C Validation
Title & Meta Tags
Heading Tags & Alt Tags
Navigation and Internal Linking
Site Map & Google Site Map Creation

Analysis and Research
Semantic Analysis, Keyword Analysis, Website Analysis, Competitive Analysis

Onpage Setup
Creation of Robots.Txt file, Sitemap Creation & Optimization, Navigation and File Structure, HTML Validation Checking, Browser Compatibility Checking, Page Size Checking, Website Load Time Checking, Extensive Log File Analysis, MOD_Rewrite for Dynamic Sites, Creation of on Site Element, Duplicate Content Checking, Broken Link Checking, Spider Simulation, Content Fixing, SEO Copywriting, Image Optimization.

Meta Tags Explained!
Substitute your relative text where we have these black boxes!

- This is your page title. It is usually the first line in any search engine listing. Use KEYWORDS in your title! <title>Your page title - up to 60 characters!

Well, these are the ones that are important right now. So, basically, just add these to the existing meta tags. In html view, put a space under your top tag and add each line. Or select your editors advertising lines and paste these over them. Use the template below. Just copy and paste into your html and start adding your info.

**60 characters**

Keyword Density - A good thing.

1- Make sure the very top of your viewable page is keyword rich text. But not just keywords. Clear, crisp, actual sentences. Robots will penalize you for keyword repetition. They call it spamming. Don't cheat but do it right. If the first thing on your page (upper left corner) is a graphic, make sure you use Alt Text. READ ON!

2- Do all of your graphics use alt tags? They should. The big problem with graphics (other than the long download) is that search engine robots don't see them. Use alt tags. Alt Tags allow you to "name" the graphic. This is the text that is displayed (pop up style) in IE and NN when you "mouse-over" the graphic. Many robots do see alt tags. Remember, add some keywords. The alt text doesn't have to describe exactly what is on the graphic but can be a few well chosen keywords.

3 -Don't be afraid of some text. Some people always say our pages are too wordy. Then, they turn around and wonder why we have a higher search engine listing than themselves. Tee hee hee. Figure it out folks. The search Engines and Search Indexes use keyword density. A LOT! Include a few superfluous paragraphs at the bottom of your page. Include every keyword that you can. But make it a real paragraph. Verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, spaces... Get the picture? Real sentences! The search engines and search indexes hate cheaters and will penalize you for a list of keywords (as spamming.) They will see real paragraphs and list you higher. (Try adding high relativity hyperlinks to your superfluous [but REAL] paragraphs.) ...

4 -Use a lot of hyperlinks. Try this. Make a list of keywords and find a relative site to link each keyword to. People will not hate you for sending them traffic. If you need a high relevance hyperlink to a bed and breakfasts, hotels or travel term, link to us (http://www.BandBSeek.com/.) We'll get listed higher and you will, also. We get a higher ranking because another site out there links to us. (Search popularity) You'll get a higher ranking for having a highly pertinent hyperlink on your page. If your site shows credibility, the se's (search engines) will reward you. A list of keyword type words doesn't appear to be considered spamming if it is a hyperlink (I always use bulleted lists to show the robot that it is a list and not spam). This is a great way to boost your site's merits, thus raising your ranking and, thus, increasing search engine traffic. Ask each site that you linked to link you back. This gives you more:

5 -Search Popularity. If your site shows up in a lot of other sites, you are rewarded. Do you have more than one site? Make sure that somewhere in every site they are all linked (preferably on a page that is or, is accessible from, your index page.) It will help. Hey... We'll link ya!

Frequently Asked Questions in SEO SEM Activity.

2009-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

What is black hat seo?

Ans: Black Hat search engine optimization is customarily defined as the practice of using unethical techniques to make your search rankings go up.

What is w3c validation?

Ans: W3C is World Wide Web Consortium and W3C validation verifies the quality of XML or HTML code done to create a well designed web page.

What is competitive analysis?

Ans: Competitor analysis in SEO is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors.

What is keyword analysis?

Ans: The Keyword Analysis means breakdown of your keyword's performance and Quality Score—including how Quality Score impacts your rankings.

What is Page Rank and Backlinks?

Ans: Page Rank is basically the quality of the particular webpage the best is 10. Backlinks are basically the number of incoming links to your website.

What is improving Quality Score?

Ans: The quality score is a dynamic metric used by Google to assess the quality and relevance of your ads and landing pages. The quality score is used mostly in Google AdWords.

How to get Number 1 spot on Google?

Ans: There are no hard and fast rules to be number one on Google or any major search engine. Infact, it is very simple, write good and relevant content, don’t use black hat techniques for website promotion. Do the necessary on-page and off-page promotions and you are on the way top. Want to know more?

What is SEO Article?

Ans: The fundamental base of the internet is not the page, but the link. A great way to accumulate links is to write articles and submit them.

What is budget optimization?

Ans: Budget Optimization is an ongoing effort in managing your PPC campaign.Closely managing your budget will help you save and properly spend your budget dollars while getting optimum position in the sponsored search results.

What is Google rule for SEO?

Ans: No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google. You have to a long term and focused approach to the SEO processes and you will start seeing results.

What are eight essential SEO Techniques?

Ans: 1) Title Tag 2) ALT Tags - 3) Link Popularity - 4) Keyword Density - 5) Page Size - 6) Rich Theme - 7) Web Site Design - 8) Insite Cross Linking - To know more about individual services contact us.

What is ad-rotation?

Ans: Rotate any number of banners on any given spot on web page. It uses JavaScript to insert the banner into html.

What is broken link fixing?

Ans: It is one of the important processes of on-page optimization .Just imagine after all the hard work we have the visitor on the website and he is seeing a broken link, you simply lose a potential customer. Fixing the broken links is one of the important jobs of the SEO process.

What is landing page improvement?

Ans: In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement and optimizing it for user friendly browsing is landing page improvement.

What is full page advertisement?

Ans: The Full Page Ad takes up the whole screen. With the whole screen available as your ad.

What is keyword matching strategy?

Ans: Matching strategies is basically used for your Pay-per-click advertising campaign to ensure higher click through rate.

What are 10 basic rules of keyword placement?

Ans: 1) For the META description tag, keep your most important keyword phrase near the beginning of the sentence and make this tag a full sentence.
2) Do NOT use bold or italic keyword phrases in the first sentence on the page, but DO use your most important keyword phrase in the first sentence, but not the first word.
3) By all means, use your keyword phrases in your headings, (H1, H2 and H3).
4) Start putting keyword phrases in bold in the second paragraph.
5) Put your keywords or keyword phrases in italics a few times after the first usage of the keyword. Never let the first usage of your keyword phrases be in Italics.
6) Use keywords in ALT tags.
7) It's very important to get other sites to use your most important keyword phase for your page in any inbound links.
8) When you are linking from any page back to your home page, use your most important keyword phrase in the link. When your home page is linking to any other page, use the keyword phrase in that link that the other page is being optimized for.
9) Don't plan on getting much (if any) help by putting keywords or keyword phrases in your left Nav panel. Google likes keywords in full sentences.
10) "I," "a," "the," and "of" do NOT count as one of your three words.

What is search engine friendly content?

Ans: User friendly content is also Search engine friendly copywriting and content creation because Content is King.

What is content fixing?

Ans: Since Content is King, it is very important to keep tab on the type of content used in your website and edit/modify/add/delete as per Search Engine Optimization perspective. This process is called content fixing.

What is social networking service?

Ans: A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the different avenues.

What is Google Dance?

Ans: The process of Google updating its index is called Google Dance.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

2009-04-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

2008-12-11 - Today the W3C announced a new standard that will help web designers and developers create sites that better meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users. Drawing on extensive experience and community feedback, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 improve upon W3C's groundbreaking initial standard for accessible web content, apply to more advanced technologies, and are more precisely testable.

* Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
http://www.W3.org/TR/WCAG20/

WCAG 2.0 succeeds Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [WCAG10], which was published as a W3C Recommendation May 1999. Although it is possible to conform either to WCAG 1.0 or to WCAG 2.0 (or both), the W3C recommends that new and updated content use WCAG 2.0. The W3C also recommends that web accessibility policies reference WCAG 2.0.
On Page SEO Techniques

Everything you need to know about on page SEO techniques are listed here at the W3...

* HTML and XHTML Techniques for WCAG 2.0
http://www.W3.org/TR/2008/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20081211/html.html

The above WCAG document contains a Table of Contents (TOC) which lists each and every HTML/XHTML element and attribute you will encounter while performing on page SEO. Working examples of these HTML/XHTML elements and attributes are provided by the WCAG and we've added that TOC below for quick reference.

Avanindra - SEO Glossary

2009-04-10T11:37:00.001-07:00

SEO Glossary by SST
200
OK - The request has succeeded. The information returned with the response is dependent on the method used in the request.
301
Moved Permanently - The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs.
302
Found - The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection might be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests.
304
Not Modified - If the client has performed a conditional GET request and access is allowed, but the document has not been modified, the server SHOULD respond with this status code.
307
Temporary Redirect - The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection MAY be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests.
400
Bad Request - The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications.
401
Unauthorized - The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing a challenge applicable to the requested resource.
403
Forbidden - The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. Authorization will not help and the request SHOULD NOT be repeated.
404
Not Found - The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent.
410
Gone - The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known. This condition is expected to be considered permanent.
500
Internal Server Error - The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.
501
Not Implemented - The server does not support the functionality required to fulfill the request. This is the appropriate response when the server does not recognize the request method and is not capable of supporting it for any resource.

SEO Tips Index

2009-04-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tips, tutorials and suggestions.

1. Semantic Data Extractor - Semantically Rich HTML
2009-01-30 - The Semantic Data Extractor Tool from the W3C will try to extract the following information from your document. We've provided on site links to extended information for each of these areas.

2. HTML 4 SEO Best Practices in HTML Authoring
2009-01-26 - Listing of all HTML 4 Elements that you as an SEO Consultant will be involved with at some point during your tenure. You should be familiar with the various HTML Elements and HTML Attributes that are available to you for on page SEO techniques.

3. The Ultimate SEO Guide
2008-12-11 - These documents are by far the most extensive resource for on page SEO. I guarantee you that nothing else compares and this SHOULD BE mandatory reading for all SEO Consultants.
4. The Basics - Building the Perfect Page - Part I
Building the Perfect Page is a series of topics discussing the basics of web page development.
* Title Element - Building the Perfect Page - Part II
This section discusses the importance of the Title Element.
o Title Element - Page Titles
Every html document must have a Title Element in the head section. Some refer to the element as a meta tag (title tag) when it is not. Here is a working example of the title element. * META Description - Building the Perfect Page - Part III This section discusses the importance of the META Description Tag. 5. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-Services-Company.html">Robots Text File</a> - robots.txt The robots.txt file is a set of instructions for visiting robots (spiders) that index the content of your web site pages. For those spiders that obey the file, it provides a map for what they can, and cannot index. * robots.txt Validation You should validate your robots.txt file. Enter the full URI to the robots.txt file on your server. The robots.txt file always resides at the root level of your web. 6. META Tags - Metadata Elements The following is a partial list of metadata elements that may be used in the overall site structuring, organization, and search engine marketing strategy. * META Description Tag Some search engines will index the META Description Tag found in the <head></head> section of your web pages. * META Keywords Tag The META Keywords Tag is where you list keywords and keyword phrases that you've targeted for that specific page. * META Language Tag In HTML elements, the language attribute specifies the natural language. This document is mostly concerned with how to specify the primary language(s) (there could be more than one) and the base language (there is only one) in HTML documents. * META Link Relationship Tag It is helpful for search results to reference the beginning of the collection of documents in addition to the page hit by the search. You may help search engines by using the link element with rel="start" along with the title attribute. * rel="nofollow" - Link Relationship Attribute By adding rel="nofollow" to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink SHOULD NOT be afforded any additional weight or ranking by user agents which perform link analysis upon web pages (e.g. search engines). 7. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-Packages.html">Robots META Tag</a> The Robots META Tag is meant to provide users who cannot upload or control the /robots.txt file at their websites, with a last chance to keep their content out of search engine indexes and services. * Googlebot Robots META Tag The Robots META Tag for Googlebot is meant to provide users who cannot upload or control the /robots.txt file at their websites, with a last chance to keep their content out of Google's indexes and services. * MSNBot Robots META Tag The Robots META Tag for MSNBot is meant to provide users who cannot upload or control the /robots.txt file at their websites, with a last chance to keep their content out of MSN's indexes and services. 8. META Tags Abuse and Misuse - Metadata Structuring and Standards The SEO Consultants Directory Administrator and Directory Editors were involved in a discussion via email where our interpretation of the Metadata standards are being challenged. 9. Revisit-After META Tag The revisit-after META tag is not supported by any major search engines, it never was supported and probably never will be. It was developed for, and supported by, Vancouver Webpages and their local search engine searchBC. 10. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/seo-company-mumbai.html">DC Dublin Core META Tags</a> - DCMI Dublin Core Metadata Initiative The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. 11. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/sem-agency.html">HTML Comments Tag</a> - HTML Markup There has been a myth that has perpetuated over the years where keywords and keyword phrases listed inside HTML comments tags would add a boost to the overall relevancy of the page. This is not true based on numerous tests we've performed during the years 2002 and 2003. <div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Avanindra Guide to Search Engine Optimization</h1> 2009-04-07T13:14:00.000-07:00 Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of guiding the development or redevelopment of a website so that it will naturally attract visitors by winning top ranking on the major search engines for selected keyword phrases. Guide to Search Engine Optimization In order to <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">optimize your website</a>, you need to ask yourself 3 questions: 1. How are people searching for my products and/or services? 2. Which sites are winning for those searches, and why? 3. Which searches can I win? After you've identified a number of search phrases that are potentially winnable, you are ready to create a search engine optimization plan for your website. First, review your website and determine whether you have significant content already developed that correlates closely with the keyword phrases you have identified. At a minimum, you need one page of well-written and useful content for each keyword family you have chosen. Each page should be entirely focused on exactly one keyword family. An excellent example is a page from an encyclopedia. For competitive keyword phrases, you will likely need to devote entire sections of your site to winning just one phrase. Your Search Engine Optimization Plan A complete guide to search engine optimization would be book-length, and would be out of date as soon as it was published, but here are several tips for building a website with <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/contact.html">search engine optimization</a> in mind: 1. Every page on your site must have a unique HTML title tag, meta keywords tag, and meta description tag. 2. Follow W3C recommendations for HTML document structure. Begin the body copy of your page with your keyword phrase, and repeat it as needed as the theme of the page throughout your copy. Feature your keyword phrase prominently by including it in headers and making it bold or italics. 3. Use text navigation on your site, and use the keyword phrases you have selected as the links. If you cannot use text navigation, include a footer on every page using text links. 4. Build a text site map, and link to it from every page of your site. 5. Organize your navigation according to the importance of your keyword phrases. If you break your site into many pages, link to the most important pages from every page of your site, and link to the other pages from section header pages and the site map. 6. Establish your site by submitting to the major directories, The Open Directory and the Yahoo! Directory, then build your link popularity by submitting to web directories, search engines, and requesting links from related websites. 7. Be patient. A search engine optimization project can take quite some time to work.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>71 Good Ways to Build Links</h1> 2009-03-08T20:08:00.000-07:00 1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint). 2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to. 3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration). 4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category. 5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".) Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At 6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.) 7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site. 8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority. PPC as a Link Building Tool 9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you. News & Syndication 10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic. 11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com. 12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc. 13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content. 14. Trade articles with other webmasters. 15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful. 16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"]. 17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links. Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking 18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions. 19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters. 20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own. 21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site. 22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it. 23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site. Local & Business Links 24. Join the Better Business Bureau. 25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce. 26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.) 27. List your site at the local library's Web site. 28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site. 29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards. 30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links. Easy Free Links 31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service. 32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources. 33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources. 34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site. 35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site. 36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page. 37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide linksâ€¦ unfortunately, some will not). 38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products. Have a Big Heart for Reviews 39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well. 40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links. 41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!). 42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams. 43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority. 44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible. Blogs & the Blogosphere 45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links. 46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them. 47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it. 48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags. 49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories. Design as a Linking Element 50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX. 51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites. 52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault. Hire Help 53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service. 54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans. Link Trading 55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks. 56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets. Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements 57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche. 58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links. 59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart. 60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site. 61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch. Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution) 62. Sue Google. 63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal. Freebies & Giveaways 64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said. 65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for mortgage calculator is worth? 66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer! 67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback. 68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to. Conferences & Social Interaction 69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait. 70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web. 71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire. 30 Bad Ways to Build Links Here are a few link buiding methods that may destroy your brand or get your site banned/penalized/filtered from major search engines, or both. Directories 72. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">Submit your site</a> to 200 cheesy paid directories (averaging $15 a pop) that send zero traffic and sell offtopic run-of-site links. Forum Spam 73. List 100 Web sites in your signature file. 74. Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites in the post area. 75. Post nothing but "me too" posts to build your post count. Use in combination with a link-rich signature file. 76. Ask questions about who provides the best [WIDGET], where [WIDGET] is an item that you sell. From the same IP address create another forum account and answer your own question raving about how great your own site is. 77. As a new member to various forums, ask the same question at 20 different forums on the same day. 78. Post on forum threads that are years outdated exclusively to link to your semi-related website. 79. Sign up for profiles on forums you never intend on commenting on. Blog Spam 80. Instead of signing blog comments with your real name, sign them with spammy keywords. 81. Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message. 82. Say nothing unique or relevant to the post at hand. Make them assume an automated bot hit their comments. 83. Better yet, use automated bots to hit their comments. List at least 30 links in each post. Try to see if you can hit any servers hard enough to make them crash. 84. Send pings to everyone talking about a subject. In your aggregation post, state nothing of interest. Only state that other people are talking about the topic. 85. Don't even link to any of the sites you are pinging. Send them pings from posts that do not even reference them. Garbage Link Exchanges 86. Send out link exchange requests mentioning PageRank. 87. Send link exchange emails which look like an automated bot sent them (little or no customization, no personal names, etc.). 88. Send link exchange requests to Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Tim Converse, Google, and Yahoo!. 89. Get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites. Spam People in Person 90. Go to webmaster conferences and rave about how rich you are, and how your affiliates make millions doing nothing. 91. Instead of asking people what their name is, ask what their URL is. As soon as you get their URL ask if they have linked to your site yet and if not, why not. Be Persistant 92. Send a webmaster an alert to every post you make on your website. 93. Send a webmaster an email every single day asking for them to link to your website. 94. Send references to your site to the same webmaster from dozens of different email accounts (you sly dog). 95. If the above do not work to get you a free link, offer them $1 for their time. Increase your offer by a dollar each day until they give in. Getting Links by Being a Jerk 96. Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.) 97. Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you. 98. Send thousands of fake referrals at every top ranking Web site, guaranteeing larger boobs, a 14-inch penis (is that length or girth?), or millions of dollars in free, unclaimed money. 99. Wear your URL on your t-shirt. Walk or drive your car while talking on a cell phone or reading a book. When you run into other people say "excuse you, jerk". 100. Spill coffee on people or find creative ways to insult people to coax them into linking at your site. 101. Sue other webmasters for deep linking to your site. Well, this is more "hilariously dumb" than it is a "bad linking practice".<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>How to promote your website</h1> 2009-03-08T20:01:00.000-07:00 Here are a number of ways that you can attract people to your website: 1. Put your website URL (for example, www.ElbelConsultingServices.com) on your business cards, letterhead, envelopes and invoices. Leave off the "http://" part. It's ok to capitalize letters. 2. Place your website on all marketing and advertising material. 3. Email an announcement to customers, supporters, and friends (but avoid sending bulk spam). ECS offers quality email campaign management. 4. Send out a press release, possibly using a service like PR WebDirect. For search engine visibility of your site, avoid using many keywords related to your site in order to keep the archived press release from competing with your site. (ECS is experienced at writing newsworthy and relevant press releases). 5. Announce your website on your voice mail. 6. Place it in your email signature. 7. Include it on your checks. 8. List it in trade association and organization directories. 9. Add your site to your Yellow Pages listing to increase credibility and direct people to your website. 10. List with your local Chamber of Commerce. 11. List with the Better Business Bureau. 12. Fax your clients about your new site. 13. Tell friends, family, and others at work about your website. 14. Distribute flyers and business cards. 15. Take out bus stop advertising. 16. Send out a postal mailing to customers and supporters telling them about your website. 17. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">Promote your website</a> in trade journals and newsletters. 18. Wear a T-shirt or jacket with your website on it. 19. Go to conferences, trade associations and conventions with your website on your name tag. 20. Wear a scrolling LED name tag badge. Two sources are Hand Held Items and Think Geek. 21. Take out an ad in the local paper to promote your company or organization and your website. 22. Get an inexpensive DIY Neon Sign Kit. 23. Take out a CraigsList ad. 24. Take out an eBay classifieds ad. 25. Conduct an advertising campaign. 26. Encourage others to link to your website. This can include customers, suppliers, advertisers, supporters, friends, etc. 27. Mutually exchange links with organizations and similar businesses who do not compete with you. 28. Make sure your webmaster makes your website search engine friendly. See How do I get high search engine visibility. 29. Make sure your webmaster submits your website to the main search engines and directories (but don't fall for services that claim to submit your site to thousands of search engines). 30. Add a "tell a friend" form to your website. 31. Consider paid placement with website directories, such as DMOZ and Yahoo. 32. Consider pay per click (PPC) search engine advertising, such as with Google AdWords. 33. Write product reviews at Amazon and on shopping sites. Be sure to include a link to your website. 34. Write articles and make eZine posts with useful content that links to your website. Include keywords related to your website. This will help generate interested and qualified traffic to your website. eZines include: GoArticles, eZineArticles, iSnare and others - see the eZine directory and the Web-source eZine directory. 35. Write forum and blog posts with useful content that links back to your website. See the article: Back To Basics: The Right and Wrong Reasons for Blogging. 36. Create a blog, keep it current with quality content, and promote it on blog directories. 37. Write a subject matter expert page at squidoo. 38. Promote your site on various social media such as twitter - see this overview. 39. Engage in "social marketing". Here is a collection of social marketing examples. Also see Back to Basics: The Right and Wrong Reasons for Using Social Media for Business. 40. Evaluate list builders such as GetSubscribers or ListJoe (but don't send spam email). 41. Place your website on your license plate frame. Place your website on your car with magnetic stickers. 42. Place it on your company-owned cars and trucks. 43. Tag similar sites on social sites such as digg, del.icio.us and others. 44. Put a relevant poll on your website to increase interest and traffic. 45. Place a contest on your website to generate interest and links. 46. Update your site frequently in order to attract return visits.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Common SEO Terms</h1> 2009-03-08T09:47:00.000-07:00 Anchor Text - Anchor text is the name you give your link. If i was to link to ozzu i would say "Ozzu Webmaster Forum " The "Ozzu Webmaster Forum" is the anchor text of the link. The anchor text should contain your main targeted keywords. SERP - Search Engine Results Page. The page or pages that a search engine displays after a search query for a certain search term or phrase. SEO - acronym for “search engine optimisation”. Search engine optimisation is a process of crafting a site's content so that the site gets high rankings in the various search engines (both the site and individual pages), and includes tailoring on-page text (such as headlines and subtitles) as well as choosing the proper keywords for a page's meta tags. Sandbox Theory - http://www.ozzu.com/google-forum/sandbox-effect-t24751.html Google Dance - The name "Google Dance" has often been used to describe the index update of the Google search engine. Google's index update occurred on average once per month. During an index update there was significant movement in search results and Google showed new backward links for pages. However, in mid-2003 Google started to update it's index continuously. It appears that, still, there has to be an update of the complete index once in a while and during this time new backward links are shown. But, because of the continuous update, the effects on search results seem to be rather insignificant. More info can be found HERE Back links – Back links are simply the term used when discussing other sites that link to your website. To find your website's back links use the following syntax in the search box of your favourite search engine: link:http://www.yoursiteurl.com Out going links – Outgoing links are links that you have on your website that link to another site. So if I placed a link on my website to http://www.ozzu.com, that would be a outgoing link. DMOZ – DMOZ is a open directory project. When you submit your site to DMOZ you will have to wait anywhere from 1 week to 5 months (or longer) for it to get approved by a editor. Getting listed on DMOZ can increase the traffic to your site and improve your page rank (this depends on the page rank of the category that you are in and I linking to you. PR - PR (PageRank) relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query. Meta Tags – A meta tag is an element of HTML that often describes the contents of a Web page, and is placed near the beginning of the page's source code. Search engines use information provided in a meta tags to index pages by subject. Indexed – If you website has been indexed then that means that it will show up in the search results. A good way to see if your site has been indexed is to type “url: http://www.yourdomain.ext” The pages that show up in your results have been indexed. Alt Text – If you do a link exchange with someone then it is recommended by all the webmasters that you add alt text to your link. Alt text is the text that appears in a box when you put your mouse over it. Search engines can read this text. Spider – A software program that "crawls" the Web, searching and indexing Web pages to create a database that can be easily searched by a search engine. Googlebot – Please visit http://www.google.com/bot.html for more information on what the googlebot is. Keyword Density – A property of the text in a web page which indicates how close together the keywords appear. Some search engines use this property for Positioning. Analysers are available which allow comparisons between pages. Pages can then be produced with the similar keyword densities to those found in high ranking pages.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SEO SEM strategy to enhance our websites ranking in major search engines</h1> 2009-03-08T09:38:00.000-07:00 Search engine: 1. Page title tags: This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing Web Marketing. 2. Domain name: If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. Example: http://www.yoursite.com/internet-marketing.htm if your keyword is Internet marketing. 3. Meta tags: These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description metatags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites, that is no longer the case. However, you shouldn't ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each. 4. Header tags: Header tags are the HTML code that indicate a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword one time in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags. Universal Log File Analyzer - Take a Test Drive for 30 Days! 5. Alt image tag: The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image isn't able to be displayed. The best use of any tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions. 6. Content formatting: Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website. 7. Keyword density: Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% - 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page. 8. Anchor text: Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to "click here" in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in "click here for dog training tips." 9. Inbound links: Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I'll link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submit articles to high traffic article directories and submit press releases to paid press release services. Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative! A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listing your site in search engine-friendly directories in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process. 10. New content: Content is still king, so one way to increase your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry. 11. Site maps: There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites. Search engine optimization strategy is not as difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you don't have to? ranking in major search engines We can use following SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & SEM (Search Engine Marketing) strategy to enhance our websites ranking in major search engines to increase visitors: - 1. Keyword Analysis: Keywords provided by you are highly generalized. We won't get targeted customer from these keywords. We will be analyzing keywords, which will generate genuine traffic. Keyword analysis includes analysis of those terms & phrases, which are searched by users to find specific information or on internet. It also includes the analysis of the competition for those keywords on the internet. 2. Inclusion of Title Tag: Inclusion of title tag on a webpage helps a user or search engine crawler to understand the theme of a website. 3. Inclusion of Meta Tags like Keyword tag, description tag: Meta tag helps search engines to determine as well as give the clear picture of what your website is about. Most of search engine uses META tags as one component of their ranking formulas. The description tag is used by search engines to display important site information on the search results page. It helps to describe the page. 4. Inclusion of Header tags: - Header tags are given importance by the search engines since they can differentiate our main keywords from rest of the content. 5. Page Renaming: We can use keywords in the web pages URL. 6. Inclusion of Sitemaps: HTML Sitemap helps visitor to navigate through the website easily whereas XML sitemap (recommended by Google) helps Google to identify and index number of pages on our website. 8. Robots file: It helps search engine crawler to understand which pages to index, we can also use it to restrict robots from indexing certain confidential data (if any). 9. Image Optimization: Search Engine crawler can't read images it understands only text. Alt tags, which are also, know as alternate tags provide text to images where we can incorporate our Keywords. 10. Directory Submission: It will help us to get traffic and one way links for our website. One-way link means getting our site link on various directories without giving link back. It gives more weightage to our website. 11. Link Building: - Link exchange is an important part of search engine marketing which helps to enhance our search engine ranking, increase traffic and to increase Page rank of our website. 12. Inclusion of Articles: Inclusion of articles which are related to our website and services will help bringing in visitors on our. 13. Forums Submission: It will help us to get one-way links. It also message boards, discussion boards, where different user can discuss about its product. 14. Blog Submission: It will help us in commenting on different issues related to installation, maintenance of various power services. And through this many people will come to know about the services provided by our website. 15. Changes is Website Design: Since, search engine crawler gives more important to the content appearing on the top left of the website. We will be making little bit of changes in website design. By placing the relevant keyword on top left of the pages instead of website address. 16. Table Trick 17. Content optimization, bold, italic tag<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>55 Quick SEO Tips</h1> 2009-03-08T09:27:00.000-07:00 <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">55 Quick SEO Tips</a> 1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow. 2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase. 3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link. 4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR. 5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches. 6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines. 7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link. 8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches. 9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images. 10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name. 11. Check for canonicalization issues - www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if <a href="http://www.domain.com/">http://www.seo-sem-tips.com</a> is your preference, then <a href="http://domain.com/">http://seo-sem-tips.com</a> should redirect to it. 12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to <a href="http://www.domain.com/">http://www.seo-sem-tips.com</a> and internal links go to <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/index.html">http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/index.html</a>. Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain. 13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem - you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results. 14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned. 15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site. 16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers. 17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you. 18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you. 19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text. 20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings. 21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer. 22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title. 23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation. 24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking. 25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you. 26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both. 27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold. 28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines. 29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links. 30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors. 31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content. 32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once. 33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present. 34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily. 35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content. 36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket! 37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description. 38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images. 39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc. 40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap. 41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results: (1) Log out of Google (2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar 42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight. 43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it. 44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL. 45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search. 46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account. 47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few. 48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query. 49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words. 50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts. 51. Add viral components to your web site or blog - reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc. 52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore. 53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much. 54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps. 55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Robots Text File - robots.txt</h1> 2009-03-08T09:11:00.001-07:00 <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">Robots Text File - robots.txt</a> The robots.txt file is a set of instructions for visiting robots (spiders) that index the content of your web site pages. For those spiders that obey the file, it provides a map for what they can, and cannot index. The file must reside in the root directory of your web. The URL path (web address) of your robots.txt file should look like this. /robots.txt The Robots text file open in Notepad might look like this: screen shot robots.txt file This is a screen shot of an empty robots.txt file Example of robots.txt File Screen Shot - Robots Text File Definition of the above robots.txt file: User-agent: * The asterisk (*) or wildcard represents a special value and means any robot. Disallow: The Disallow: line without a / (forward slash) tells the robots that they can index the entire site. Any empty value, indicates that all URLs can be retrieved. At least one Disallow field needs to be present in a record without the / (forward slash) as shown above. The presence of an empty "/robots.txt" file has no explicit associated semantics, it will be treated as if it was not present, i.e. all robots will consider themselves welcome. The Disallow: line without the trailing slash (/) tells all robots to index everything. If you have a line that looks like this: Disallow: /private/ It tells the robot that it cannot index the contents of that /private/ directory. Summarizing the Robots Exclusion Protocol - robots.txt file To allow all robots complete access: User-agent: * Disallow: screen shot robots.txt fileThis is a screen shot of an empty robots.txt file Example of robots.txt File Screen Shot - Robots Text File To exclude all robots from the server: User-agent: * Disallow: / To exclude all robots from parts of a server: User-agent: * Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /images-saved/ Disallow: /images-working/ To exclude a single robot from the server: User-agent: Named Bot Disallow: / To exclude a single robot from parts of a server: User-agent: Named Bot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /images-saved/ Disallow: /images-working/ Note: The asterisk (*) or wildcard in the User-agent field is a special value meaning "any Robot" and therefore is the only one needed until you fully understand how to set up different User-agents. If you want to Disallow: a particular file within the directory, your Disallow: line might look like this one: Disallow: /private/top-secret-stuff.htm Keep in mind that using the above example excludes that specified page (top-secret-stuff.htm) but will not exclude the entire /private/ directory. You should validate your robots.txt file. Enter the full URI to the robots.txt file on your server. The robots.txt file always resides at the root level of your web.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Top 10 SEO Tips</h1> 2009-03-08T09:11:00.000-07:00 <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">Top 10 SEO Tips</a> #1: Find the Best Keywords #2: Discover Your Competitors • Competitor rank in the Search Engines • Number of incoming links • What keywords are in the title of linking page • % of links containing keywords in the link text • The PageRank of linking pages • The Alexa traffic ranking information #3: Optimize Your Title The Title and META tags should be different on every page of your website if you wish for most search engines to store and list them in the search results. This one excercise could make or break your SEO campaign. Click-Through Rate (CTR) plays an instrumental role in how relevant Google thinks your website is. #4: Optimize Your META Tags keep it under 150 characters and to not repeat your keywords more than 3 times. It may be a coincidence, but I've also noticed ranking improvements when I put my keywords at the beginning of the description. Here's the syntax: if you repeat your keywords more than 3 times it can be a pretty good indication to the search engine that you are trying to spam their search results. #5: Use Headings Headings play an important role in organizing information, so be sure to include at least H1-H3 when assembling your page. Using cascading style Sheets (CSS), I was able to make my h1 at the top of this page more appealing. Here's a piece of code you can pop into your heading: Since a page full of headings would look just plain silly, my SEO tip would be to fill in the blank space with paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, images, and other content. Try to get at least 400+ words on each page. #6: Use Title and ALT Attributes we add a title attribute and include our keywords. Using the Title Attribute is an direct method of telling the search engines about the relevance of the link. It's also a W3C standard for making your page accessible to disabled people. In other words, blind folks can navigate through your website using a special browser that reads Title and ALT attributes. The syntax is: SEO Software The ALT Attribute is used for the same reasons as the Title Attribute, but is specifically for describing an image to the search engine and to the visually disabled. Here's how you would use ALT in an IMG tag: #7: Nomenclatures It's not confirmed, but many SEO's have experienced improvement in ranking by renaming images and media. do your best to insure the content has the keywords in the filename (as well as a Title or ALT attribute). #8: Create a Site Map Page a site map page comes in. Since every page on the website will be linked to the sitemap, it allows webcrawlers (and users) to quickly and easily find content. #9:Include a robots.txt File By far the easiest top 10 SEO tips you will ever do as it relates to search engine optimization is include a robots.txt file at the root of your website. Open up a text editor, such as Notepad and type "User-agent: *". Then save the file as robots.txt and upload it to your root directory on your domain. This one command will tell any spider that hits your website to "please feel free to crawl every page of my website". Here's one of my best top 10 SEO tips: Because the search engine analyzes everything it indexes to determine what your website is all about, it might be a good idea to block folders and files that have nothing to do with the content we want to be analyzed. You can disallow unrelated files to be read by adding "Disallow: /folder_name/" or "Disallow: /filename.html". Here is an example of the robots.txt file on this site: User-agent: * Disallow: /folder_name Disallow: /filename.html #10: Install a sitemap.xml for Google<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> 2009-03-08T09:06:00.000-07:00 What is RSS? RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and sometimes content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading. What problem does RSS solve? Most people are interested in many websites whose content changes on an unpredictable schedule. Examples of such websites are news sites, community and religious organization information pages, product information pages, medical websites, and weblogs. Repeatedly checking each website to see if there is any new content can be very tedious. Email notification of changes was an early solution to this problem. Unfortunately, when you receive email notifications from multiple websites they are usually disorganized and can get overwhelming, and are often mistaken for spam. RSS is a better way to be notified of new and changed content. Notifications of changes to multiple websites are handled easily, and the results are presented to you well organized and distinct from email. What information does RSS provide? RSS provides very basic information to do its notification. It is made up of a list of items presented in order from newest to oldest. Each item usually consists of a simple title describing the item along with a more complete description and a link to a web page with the actual information being described. Sometimes this description is the full information you want to read (such as the content of a weblog post) and sometimes it is just a summary. For example, the RSS information for headlines on a local news website could contain the following information: Item 1: Title: Sidewalk contract awarded Description: The city awarded the sidewalk contract to Smith Associates. This hotly contested deal is worth $1.2 million. Link: http://www.gardencitynews.com/contractawards/sidewalk.htm Item 2: Title: Governor to visit Description: The governor is scheduled to visit the city on July 1st. This is the first visit since the election two years ago. The mayor is planning a big reception. Link: http://www.gardencitynews.com/news/2004/06/gov-visit.htm The RSS information is placed into a single file on a website in a manner similar to normal web pages. However, the information is coded in the XML computer language for use by a program (the RSS aggregator) and not by a person like a normal web page. How do I find out if a website has an RSS feed? It is getting more and more common for websites to have RSS feeds. They usually indicate the existence of the feed on the home page or main news page with a link to "RSS", or sometimes by displaying an orange button with the letters "XML" or "RSS". RSS feeds are also often found via a "Syndicate This" link. Text "RSS" links sometimes (there are lots of variations) point to a web page explaining the nature of the RSS feeds provided and how to find them. The buttons are often linked directly to the RSS feed file itself. RSS is a method that uses XML to distribute web content on one web site, to many other web sites. RSS allows fast browsing for news and updates. Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following: • HTML / XHTML • XML / XML Namespaces What is RSS? • RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication • RSS allows you to syndicate your site content • RSS defines an easy way to share and view headlines and content • RSS files can be automatically updated • RSS allows personalized views for different sites • RSS is written in XML <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">Why use RSS?</a> RSS was designed to show selected data. Without RSS, users will have to check your site daily for new updates. This may be too time-consuming for many users. With an RSS feed (RSS is often called a News feed or RSS feed) they can check your site faster using an RSS aggregator (a site or program that gathers and sorts out RSS feeds). Since RSS data is small and fast-loading, it can easily be used with services like cell phones or PDA's. Web-rings with similar information can easily share data on their web sites to make them better and more useful. Who should use RSS? Webmasters who seldom update their web sites do not need RSS! RSS is useful for web sites that are updated frequently, like: • News sites - Lists news with title, date and descriptions • Companies - Lists news and new products • Calendars - Lists upcoming events and important days • Site changes - Lists changed pages or new pages The Future of RSS RSS is going to be everywhere! Thousands of sites use RSS and more people understand its usefulness every day. With RSS, information on the internet becomes easier to find, and web developers can spread their information more easily to special interest groups.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>What Are Hits?</h1> 2009-03-08T08:58:00.000-07:00 <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eAv9GhgifmA/SbPss0AdoZI/AAAAAAAAAAU/S-SZbZuEx14/s1600-h/clientserver-02+(1).gif"></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eAv9GhgifmA/SbPsYTDBgOI/AAAAAAAAAAM/mTkHspbU2x4/s1600-h/clientserver-01.gif"></a> <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">What Are Hits?</a> A hit is a request for one file from a web server. For example, if you request (i.e. visit) a single web page which contains only text, the web server will send you that page as a file. This process is called a hit. 1 File Request = 1 Hit In the early days of the Internet, hits were a reasonable way of tracking how many pages were viewed. Each page was one file, so hits equalled page views (more or less). The problem is that in today's Internet, each page is typically made up of multiple files. Each time you request a page you receive a whole bunch of responses — each of which counts as a separate hit. 1 Page Request = Multiple Hits It is quite common for one visitor to generate dozens or even hundreds of hits during a single visit. Clearly hits are a gross exaggeration of the number of visits, but it gets worse. Because websites are designed so differently, there is no common baseline for determining how many hits an average visitor generates. If a website uses 25 icons in their navigation menu, it will generate a lot more hits than a site which uses a single image file. This makes hits absolutely useless when it comes to reporting traffic volume. Hits Any request made to the server which is logged, is considered a 'hit'. The requests can be for anything... html pages, graphic images, audio files, cgi scripts, etc... Each valid line in the server log is counted as a hit. This number represents the total number of requests that were made to the server during the specified report period. E.g. Accessing a page with 3 images on it will count as 4 hits (1 for the html page and 1 for each image). Files Some requests made to the server, require that the server then send something back to the requesting client, such as a html page or graphic image. When this happens, it is considered a 'file' and the files total is incremented. The relationship between 'hits' and 'files' can be thought of as 'incoming requests' and 'outgoing responses'. Pages Pages are, literally just pages. Generally, any HTML document, or anything that generates an HTML document, would be considered a page. This does not include graphic images, audio clips, etc... This number represents the number of 'pages' requested only, not images or anything else included in the document featured on the page. Visits Whenever a request is made to the server from a given IP address (site), the amount of time since a previous request by the address is calculated (if any). If the time difference is greater than a pre-configured 'visit timeout' value (or has never made a request before), it is considered a 'new visit', and this total is incremented (both for the site, and the IP address). Sites Each request made to the server comes from a unique 'site', which can be referenced by a name or ultimately, an IP address. The 'sites' number shows how many unique IP addresses made requests to the server during the reporting time period. This DOES NOT mean the number of unique individual users (real people) that visited, which is impossible to determine using just logs and the HTTP protocol (however, this number might be about as close as you will get). KBytes The KBytes (kilobytes) value shows the amount of data, in KB, which was sent out by the server during the specified reporting period. This value is generated directly from the log file, so it is up to the web server to produce accurate numbers in the logs. In general, this should be a fairly accurate representation of the amount of outgoing traffic the server had. (Note: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes) Top Entry and Exit Pages The Top Entry and Exit Pages give rough estimates of what URL's are used to enter your site, and what the last pages viewed are. Because of limitations in the HTTP protocol, log rotations, etc... This number should be considered a good "rough guess" of the actual numbers, however will give a good indication of the overall trend in where users come into, and exit, your site.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Search Engine Marketing</h1> 2009-03-08T05:29:00.000-07:00 <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/">Search Engine Marketing</a> <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/aboutus.html">Analytics</a> Learn how looking at the ways people find and use your web site can give you valuable insight into your marketing campaigns, your page content and your products. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/services.html">Blogging</a> Blogs are simple programs that allow web site owners to quickly and easily publish new content to their web site. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Results.html">Brand Building</a> With social media and search engines driving a huge percentage of the traffic to a web site, it's essential to make sure you're building your brand and convincing people to come looking for YOU. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Website-Content-Writer.html">Content and Copywriting</a> Getting people to come to your web site is only half the battle. Once they've arrived, you need to be certain you're serving up fresh, engaging content. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-News.html">Conversions</a> Traffic is not your friend. Conversions are your friend. This collection of articles shares practical advice you can use in your marketing campaigns and on your web site to make sure you are driving leads, sales and sign-ups. Google AdSense <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Search-Engine-Optimization.html">Google AdWords</a> Keywords Keywords are the words or phrases people type into the search engines to find the web sites they're looking for. Learn how to identify the best keywords for your site and how to integrate them into your title tags, headlines and page copy to improve rankings. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/link-building-experts.html">Link Building</a> There's no denying the power of links in terms of online marketing. Search engines use links as a way to determine how valuable and relevant your site is and people use links to move from one site to another. Building quality links from relevant sources can go a long way toward improving your search rankings, but it can also drive tons of targeted traffic. Local Search With paper Yellow Pages quickly getting buried in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, local search is being an essential part of any online marketing campaign. Learn which sites searchers are turning to for listings and reviews and find out how you can put your best foot forward on them. Online PR Public relations isn't just for big companies anymore. The web has taken conversation global which means one angry customer can do major damage to your brand. Of course that also means one very happy customer can launch your brand into the stratosphere. Learn the nuances of online public relations through the articles in this category. Online Reputation Management Companies worry someone might say something bad about them online. What they should be worried about is that someone might say something bad about them online without them ever knowing it. Learn how to track the conversation about your company, your products and even yourself. Get practical tips and advice on heading off, or recovering from a crisis. Other A collection of articles and posts that do not fall into any particular online marketing category. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Internet-Marketing.html">Paid Search Advertising (PPC)</a> Purchasing keyword triggered advertising on major search engines or content sites can be a great way to drive targeted traffic to your web site. These articles explore the various paid search advertising options and offer up tips for maximizing the value of your ad dollar. Puppy Picks <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Organic-SEO-India.html">Search Engine Marketing</a> This category covers high level search marketing concepts. These articles and posts tend to focus on the overall value of search marketing tactics and the need to integrate several forms of online marketing to build stronger results. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Optimization.html">Search Engine Optimization</a> SEO is the practice of increasing your rankings in the organic (non-paid) search results of a search engine. The posts in this category offer up tips and advice for making sure your site is search engine friendly and for increasing your rankings through changes in links, content and keyword focus. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-Specialist-Mumbai.html">Search Marketing Bootcamp</a> If you're new to search marketing, these entry level articles will help you get an idea of what goes into a search marketing campaign. You'll find step by step primers and simple explanations aimed at helping you dive into search marketing without fear of drowning. Social Media There's a conversation going on around you. Are you part of it? Social media sites focus on giving people a way to connect and share thoughts, ideas and creations. Smart companies are figuring out ways to contribute to and become part of this conversation. Learn how to join in without stepping on toes. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Professional-SEO-India.html">Universal Search</a> Search engines used to focus on delivering up a list of the best web pages for a search. These days, they're also integrating video, images, blog listings, product listings and more. Learn how universal search is changing up search engine optimization and how savvy marketers are taking advantage of it to increase their presence in search results. Unleashed Conference News and information from our Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference. Articles and video reviews and interviews are included. Usability Ever been to a site that made it difficult for you to find your way around? Tried to buy a product, but couldn't find the add to cart option? If so, you've experienced a usability problem. This collection of articles focuses on the need to build your web site around accepted standards so users can quickly and easily find their way around. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Search-Engine-Ranking-India.html">Vertical Search</a> Specialized search engines focus on serving up results for a specific topic or from a specific type of media. Vertical search engines may let you dig deep into video results or refine your search to sites focused on one industry. These engines serve as great sources of engaged traffic and learning how to increase your rankings on them can have a huge pay off. Viral Marketing Every now and then a little piece of marketing genius takes off with lightening speed and finds its way to half the computers on the Internet. These articles will give you insight into what makes some pieces fly while others flounder. They'll also help you learn how to find the best starting points to launch a viral campaign. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-for-Web-Traffic.html">Search Engine Marketing Guide</a> There is a lot involved with search engine marketing. In fact, it can be a bit overwhelming, even for those with a great deal of experience. The good news is that by taking it one step at a time, it is not hard to learn. And once learned, search engine marketing can provide an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to your web site. The following is a simple guide to search engine marketing. Although it is meant for beginners, it can also be very useful for more advanced search engine marketers as a reference source. Each section provides a brief overview of the basics followed by resources for further study. Take it one step at a time and you'll soon understand the basics of search engine marketing... Keywords & Search TermsThe first step is to learn about the search terms that your target audience is using when using search engines. These search terms are the keywords and keyphrases that will be used to market your web site. On this page you will learn about: * The importance of keywords and search terms. * Tools that will help you find your best keywords. * Search term lists useful for spotting general trends. Search Engine Optimization Step two addresses how to make basic web site design changes that will make your site more search engine friendly. On this page you will learn about: 1. What is <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-Packages.html">search engine optimization</a> (SEO)? 2. Domain names. 3. The Title Tag. 4. Meta Description and Meta Keyword Tags. 5. Copywriting. 6. ALT Tags. 7. Site Map 8. Dealing with FLASH. 9. Dealing with dynamic pages. 10. File formats. 11. Framed sites & pages. 12. JavaScript. 13. What to avoid. 14. Getting professional SEO help. 15. Getting free help. Search Engine SubmissionAfter you've gone through the search engine optimization process, it's time to get your site listed in the various search engines and directories. On this page you will learn about: 1. How will the search engines find my site? 2. Submitting your site using a free submit form. 3. Submitting to directories. 4. Paying the search engines to index your site. 5. Services to avoid. 6. <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-Services-Company.html">Services</a> that can help. Link PopularityLink popularity is a major factor when it comes to ranking well in search engines and drawing traffic to your site. In step four, you will learn how to increase the number of links to your site, how to get quality sites to link to yours, and the overall effect link popularity has on your rankings. On this page you will learn about: 1. What is <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Link-Building-Company.html">link popularity</a>? 2. Getting links to your site. 3. Checking Your Link Popularity 4. What not to do. Paid InclusionIf you would rather not wait for the search engines to find and index your site on their own, you can pay to be indexed faster. With step five, you will learn if paid inclusion is a viable option for you. On this page you will learn about: 1. What is paid inclusion? 2. Will it help my <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Optimization-Strategies.html">site rank better</a>? 3. What are the costs? Pay Per Click Search EnginesPay per click search engines and pay per click advertising provides web site owners the opportunity to buy their way to better positions on search results pages. Step six looks at this form of advertising. On this page you will learn about: 1. What is pay per click? 2. Which search engines allow <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/PPC-Management.html">pay per click advertising</a>? 3. Important Considerations 4. Pay per click affiliate programs. 5. Pay per click <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/Press-Release.html">information resources</a>. Log File and Traffic AnalysisYour site's log files contain a wealth of information about the effectiveness of your web site marketing programs. With your log files, you can learn how your visitors are finding your site, what search terms they are using to find it, and which are the best sources of traffic for your site. On this page you will learn about: 1. What is a log file? 2. Why is log file and traffic analysis important? 3. Services and tools that can help. Google's PageRankAlthough Google's PageRank is but one factor Google uses to determine its search results, it is a popular topic. Step eight provides basic information to help you better understand the importance of PageRank. On this page you will learn about: 1. What is <a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com/SEO-Holiday-Season.html">Google's PageRank</a>? 2. How do I find the PageRank of a web page?<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Google Advanced Operators</h1> 2009-03-05T23:04:00.000-08:00 Google Advanced Operators, Search Advanced Operators Google supports several advanced operators, which are query words that have special meaning to Google. Typically these operators modify the search in some way, or even tell Google to do a totally different type of search. For instance, "link:" is a special operator, and the query [<a href="http://www.seo-sem-tips.com">link:www.google.com</a>] doesn't do a normal search but instead finds all web pages that have links to www.google.com. Several of the more common operators use punctuation instead of words, or do not require a colon. Among these operators are OR, "" (the quote operator), - (the minus operator), and + (the plus operator). More information on these types of operators is available on the Basics of Search page. Many of these special operators are accessible from the Advanced Search page, but some are not. Below is a list of all the special operators Google supports. Alternate query types cache: If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, [cache:www.google.com web] will show the cached content with the word "web" highlighted. This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the "Cached" link on Google's main results page. The query [cache:] will show the version of the web page that Google has in its cache. For instance, [cache:www.google.com] will show Google's cache of the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "cache:" and the web page url. link: The query [link:] will list webpages that have links to the specified webpage. For instance, [link:www.google.com] will list webpages that have links pointing to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "link:" and the web page url. This functionality is also accessible from the Advanced Search page, under Page Specific Search > Links. related: The query [related:] will list web pages that are "similar" to a specified web page. For instance, [related:www.google.com] will list web pages that are similar to the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "related:" and the web page url. This functionality is also accessible by clicking on the "Similar Pages" link on Google's main results page, and from the Advanced Search page, under Page Specific Search > Similar. info: The query [info:] will present some information that Google has about that web page. For instance, [info:www.google.com] will show information about the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "info:" and the web page url. This functionality is also accessible by typing the web page url directly into a Google search box. Other information needs define: The query [define:] will provide a definition of the words you enter after it, gathered from various online sources. The definition will be for the entire phrase entered (i.e., it will include all the words in the exact order you typed them). stocks: If you begin a query with the [stocks:] operator, Google will treat the rest of the query terms as stock ticker symbols, and will link to a page showing stock information for those symbols. For instance, [stocks: intc yhoo] will show information about Intel and Yahoo. (Note you must type the ticker symbols, not the company name.) This functionality is also available if you search just on the stock symbols (e.g. [ intc yhoo ]) and then click on the "Show stock quotes" link on the results page. Query modifiers site: If you include [site:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to those websites in the given domain. For instance, [help site:www.google.com] will find pages about help within www.google.com. [help site:com] will find pages about help within .com urls. Note there can be no space between the "site:" and the domain. This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Domains. allintitle: If you start a query with [allintitle:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the title. For instance, [allintitle: google search] will return only documents that have both "google" and "search" in the title. This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Occurrences. intitle: If you include [intitle:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, [intitle:google search] will return documents that mention the word "google" in their title, and mention the word "search" anywhere in the document (title or no). Note there can be no space between the "intitle:" and the following word. Putting [intitle:] in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting [allintitle:] at the front of your query: [intitle:google intitle:search] is the same as [allintitle: google search]. allinurl: If you start a query with [allinurl:], Google will restrict the results to those with all of the query words in the url. For instance, [allinurl: google search] will return only documents that have both "google" and "search" in the url. Note that [allinurl:] works on words, not url components. In particular, it ignores punctuation. Thus, [allinurl: foo/bar] will restrict the results to page with the words "foo" and "bar" in the url, but won't require that they be separated by a slash within that url, that they be adjacent, or that they be in that particular word order. There is currently no way to enforce these constraints. This functionality is also available through Advanced Search page, under Advanced Web Search > Occurrences. inurl: If you include [inurl:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the url. For instance, [inurl:google search] will return documents that mention the word "google" in their url, and mention the word "search" anywhere in the document (url or no). Note there can be no space between the "inurl:" and the following word. Putting "inurl:" in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting "allinurl:" at the front of your query: [inurl:google inurl:search] is the same as [allinurl: google search].<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Landing Page</h1> 2009-03-03T05:17:00.000-08:00 1). A simple page from site having a direct link with home page. 2). It would better to start at least 3-4 month the time of occasion (ranking). 3). There should be no java script and flash, frame on the page. 4). Page Renaming: use keywords in the web pages URL. Keyword in the url supported by search engines, Page name (Occasion - festival name) should be coming in the url. 5).Use Headings Headings plays an important role in organizing information, so be sure to include at least H1-H3 when assembling your page. 6).Use Title and ALT Attributes Add a title attribute and include keywords. Using the Title Attribute is a direct method of telling the search engines about the relevance of the link. 7).Content optimization Bold, Italic tag (Keywords) 8). Min 250 word s content (with keywords 7 to 10 times in the content) Points to increase the ROI 5).Related name brands For example, if we have selected the keyword 'hiking shoes,' make sure that our ad mentions hiking shoes or related name brands? Our landing page should be offering the name brands we mentioned, along with detailed information about this shoe type?" 6).Content Keep it short and to the point. Paragraphs should be no longer than three lines, if they are used at all. One idea per paragraph is plenty of information fodder. 10).Reinforcing credibility Testimonials, press, kitemarks, partners, visible customer support options. All these things convey trust and respectability. They ease the mind of the prospective buyer, who might not know your brand. Trust is very important. 11).Good use of images and colour Presentation (eg: colours, graphics, icons) can play a big role in reinforcing purchase intent. Avoid clutter. White space and big fonts. Smart layout. 12).For a single page target only 2-3 keywords<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Quality landing page, to improving conversion rates:</h1> 2009-03-02T23:20:00.000-08:00 Quality landing page, to improving conversion rates: 1. Brevity Keep it short and to the point. Paragraphs should be no longer than three lines, if they are used at all. One idea per paragraph is plenty of information fodder. 2. Relevancy In the case of PPC landing pages you need to match the offer to your text ad copy. Keywords should be highlighted or displayed prominently. Keep it relevant to that person's search query, because that's all they care about. 3. A direct approach Bullet points work well online, to help communicate the benefits of a product or service. Keep in mind that people skim read on the web. Use bold text to reinforce key messages. 4. A clear call-to-action That potentially means a big Buy Now button, above the fold... 5. Fact over fiction Stick to the key facts and be transparent, especially when the landing page is related to an ad campaign. Do not hide the price. Avoid flowery prose. This ain't a press release. Product features, product features, product features. 6. Persuasion Persuasion means removing any links that might distract, focusing the consumer's mind on the end goal: the checkout. This means writing compelling copy. Persuade visitors not to drop out by limiting their options - remove link navigation, for example. Prominently display delivery options and costs. Sell the goddamned product... 7. Clear scent trails How easy is it for a novice web user to get from A to B? You need to encourage visitors to walk / run down that conversion path. Conducting usability testing on your landing page templates may also provide you with some answers. 8. Grammatical accuracy Its important, innit? Because people dont like spelling misteaks and stuff like that. First impressions count. 9. Reinforcing credibility Testimonials, press, kitemarks, partners, visible customer support options. All these things convey trust and respectability. They ease the mind of the prospective buyer, who might not know your brand. Trust is very important. 10. Good use of images and colour Presentation (eg: colours, graphics, icons) can play a big role in reinforcing purchase intent. Avoid clutter. White space and big fonts. Smart layout. 11.Related name brands For example, if you have selected the keyword 'hiking shoes,' have you made sure that your ad mentions hiking shoes or related name brands? Does your landing page actually offer the name brands you mentioned, along with detailed information about this shoe type?"<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SEO Recommended Tags</h1> 2009-02-28T01:30:00.001-08:00 SEO Recommended Tags Good Tip: If you want Google to use the description that you've wrote in your Meta description tag, just simply place your targeted keyword phrase in your Meta description tag and Google will use your Meta description. If you choose not too then Google will take a snippet of content from your web page that has that keyword phrase in it. Most of the time, it doesn't read very smoothly. Over the years Meta tags have become quite misunderstood and usually used incorrectly on the Internet. With the help of this document a brief explanation of Meta tags will be given, a complete break down of all the Meta tags that we are aware of, and recommendations of which ones you should or shouldn't use for your website. What are Meta tags? This question gets asked to us all the time. Meta tags are a snippet of informational code that has been located between your tags that are apart of your HTML document you've generated. There are two known styles/attributes that you'll see for Meta tags. These happen to be: 1. 2. Back in the mid 90s Meta tags were developed to assist in the rapid growth of web pages, but soon after in the late 90s something major happened. Many Webmasters, generally those that ran adult orientated websites, abused the use of Keyword Meta tags. Many unrelated keywords were placed on their site in the Meta tag section, causing their pornographic sites to begin appearing in search results not related to ics such as "Smithsonian". Eventually the major search engines began discontinuing the use of Meta tags for main criteria when listing sites. Google always refused the use of Meta tags, and now currently only will index Google Meta Tags. There are several searches that do read Meta tags in their own way. The following list of links will take you to information about each of the individual Meta tags that we offer information on: Recommended Tags Meta Content Language (non-US English ONLY) Meta Content Type Meta Description Meta Language (non-US English ONLY) Optional Tags Meta Abstract Meta Author Meta Copyright Meta Designer Meta Google Meta Keywords Meta MSN (No ODP) Meta Title Not Recommended Tags Meta Content Script Type Meta Content Style Type Meta Distribution Meta Expires Meta Generator Meta MS Smart Tags Meta Pragma No-Cache Meta Publisher Meta Rating Meta Refresh Meta Reply-To Meta Resource Type Meta Revisit After Meta Robots Meta Set Cookie Meta Subject Meta VW96.ObjectType Alright now that you've seen the list of recommended, optional, and not recommended tags lets get more information on each of these. If you'd like to quickly jump to a certain Meta tag select the link from above. Meta Abstract Gives a short summary of the description. The Meta Abstract is used primarily with academic papers. The content for this tag is usually 10 words or less. An example of a Meta Abstract: Recommendation of Meta Abstract: This is an optional Meta tag. It will not assist you with the major search engines. If you have content that is highly specialized, with the use of the Meta abstract tag it will allow search engines that are apart of your field of expertise to index your website correctly. Currently the Meta abstract tag is not apart of Google, Yahoo!, and MSN algorithms. Meta Author The Meta Author tag will display the author of the document. With this Meta tag it will reference the name of the person who developed the HTML/XML document that is being viewed. If you use the Meta Author tag it is recommended to use it with the author's first and last name, but it is not recommended to have the inclusion of the author's email address due to the large increase of Spam. If the author would like to be contacted, it is advised to include a contact form on a HTML page instead. An example of a Meta Author tag: Recommendation of Meta Author tag:The Meta Author tag is an optional Meta tag to use. If you have several individuals contributing to the content of your site include this tag for assistance in tracking the author. The Meta Author tag is not indexed by Google, Yahoo!, or MSN, meaning it will not assist you in search engine rankings, but it is recognized as part of the "Meta Tag Standard." Read more on Meta Author Meta Content Language The Meta Content Language tag declares the natural language of the document. This is also known as the Meta Name Language. Robots use this tag to categorize the language of the web page. An example of a Meta Content Language tag: An example of a Meta Content Language tag: It is advised only to use the Meta Content Language tag if your website is written in non-US English. Currently we have not tested this tag, but we have had reports from our members that it does assist non-US English sites in getting categorized properly by the search engines. Read more on Meta Content. Meta Content Script Type Meta Content Script Type tag is used to specify the default scripting language of the document. An example of a Meta Content Script Type: Recommendations for Meta Content Script Type: It is advised not to use the Meta Content Script Type tag. Search engines do not need this tag to detect scripts as they do this on their own. Browsers also do not use this tag either, as they have other detection methods in place. Read more on Meta Content. Meta Content Style Type The Meta Content Style Type is used to specify the default Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) language for the documents. An example of a Meta Content Style Type tag: Recommendations for Meta Content Style Type tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Content Style Type tag. Search engines do not need to know the style sheet of a document. Web browsers also do not look to the Meta tags for style sheet information. Read more on Meta Content. Meta Content Type To declare the character set. The Meta Content Type tag is used to declare the character set of a website. It has become recommended to always use the Meta Content Type tag even if you use a DTD declaration above the Header. If you fail to do so it may cause display problems where as for instance the document uses UTF-8 punctuation characters but is displayed in ISO or ASCII character sets. There are other benefits of using the Meta Content Type tag, but you will need to become a subscriber of our SEO Revolution Newsletter (paid membership) to get the entire scoop of what the Meta Content Type tag can do for your site. An example of a Meta Content Type tag: Recommendations of a Meta Content Type tag: It is recommended to always use the Meta Content Type tag along with using the DTD declaration format from the World Wide Web Consortium. If you fail to do so you may cause display problems. For example the Meta Content Type tag helps properly display the page if the document uses UTF-8 punctuation characters, but is displayed in ISO or ASCII character sets. There are many benefits to using the Meta Content Type tag. To get the entire scoop on the Meta Content Type tags become a paid member and subscribe to our SEO Revolution Newsletter. Read more on Meta Content Type. Meta Copyright The Meta Copyright tag is used to include a copyright, trademark, patent, or other information that pertains to intellectual property. An example of a Meta Copyright tag: Recommendations for a Meta Copyright tag: It is not required to use a Meta Copyright tag. Please be aware that the Meta Copyright tag will not protect your site's content or your intellectual property. Consult your attorney to ensure you are protected properly. Meta Description The Meta Description tag gives a description of the document. The Meta Description tag is a short, plain language description of the document, usually consisting of 20-25 words or less. Search engines that support the Meta Description tag will use the information to publish on their search results page, normally displaying below the Title of your site listing. An example of a Meta Description tag: Recommendations of the Meta Description tag: It is recommended to always use the Meta Description tag. Make your Meta Description as compelling as you can, as your description often is the difference between getting your listings clicked in the search results. The Meta Description tag is particularly important if your document has very little text, is a frameset, or has extensive scripts at the . Meta Designer The Meta Designer tag is used to declare the designer of the website. An example of a Meta Designer tag: Recommendations of the Meta Designer tag: The Meta Designer tag is optional to use. Usually web designers who want advertising or to catch people who hijack their designs use the Meta Designer tag. It should be understood that search engines do not support the Meta Designer tag. Meta Distribution The Meta Distribution tag is used to declare the distribution of your web content. There are three classifications of distribution which consist of: * Global (the entire web) * Local (reserved for the local IP block of your site) * IU (Internal Use, not for public distribution). An example of a Meta Distribution tag: Recommendations for the Meta Distribution tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Distribution tag. If you want to have restricted distribution, use the robots.txt tag or your HTAccess file. Meta Expires The Meta Expires tag is used to declare the date and time after which the web document should be considered expired. An example of the Meta Expires tag: Recommendations for the Meta Expires tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Expires tag. While the Meta Expires tag is good in concept, it is impractical for search engines and not only do search engines not read the Meta Expires tag, but according to my testing, browsers ignore it too. Looking to s Google from caching your site? Even if you use the Meta Expires tag Google will cache your page. The Meta Expires tag is worthless don't bother with it. Read more on Meta Expires Tag. Meta Generator The Meta Generator tag is used to declare the name and version number of the publishing tool used to create the page. The Meta Generator tag can be used by tool vendors to assess market penetration. An example of the Meta Generator tag: Recommendations for Meta Generator tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Generator tag. If you have the Meta Generator tag, delete them if possible. Meta Generator tags don't serve no purpose for your pages. Meta Google The Meta Google tag has several options that are exclusive for use with Google. These include: 1. Googlebot: noarchive - does not allow Google to display cached content 2. Googlebot: nosnippet - does not allow Google to display excerpt or cached content 3. Googlebot: noindex - similar to the robots meta element 4. Googlebot: nofollow - do not allow Google to pass any PageRank or link popularity to the link served. Recommendations for the Meta Google tags: The Meta Google tags are optional to use. You generally do not need to use Meta Google tags unless you want Google to do something specific with your site. The Meta Google tag is one of the few Meta tags Google will read, index, and obey. Read More on Google Meta Tags . For more info straight from Google, see Google's Remove Page. Also referenced: meta tags google Meta Language The Meta Language tag is used to declare the language used on the website. Webmasters who wish to declare the primary language of the web page can use the Meta Language tag. An example of the Meta Language tag: Recommendation of the Meta Language tag: It is recommended to only use the Meta Language tag for sites in the non-US English languages. No testing has been done in other languages to verify if the Meta Language tag does indeed work. Meta Keywords The Meta Keywords is used to list keywords that define the content of your site. Keywords are used by search engines to properly index your site in addition to words from the title, document body, and other areas. The Meta Keywords tag is typically used for synonyms and alternates of title words. An example of the Meta Keywords tag: Recommendations for the Meta Keywords tag: It is recommended to use the Meta Keywords tag with caution. Make sure to only use keywords that are relevant to your site. Search engines are known to penalize or blacklist your site for abuse. The Meta Keywords tag also exposes your keywords to your competitors. Five hours of keyword research and your competitor can hijack research within just a few minutes. Meta MS Smart Tags The Meta MS Smart tags were part of a beta test of Internet Explorer that was removed due to negative press and feedback from users. In short, Microsoft would sell keyword phrases, then the Meta MS Smart Tags would allow for those keywords to be highlighted on web pages that would take the user to the advertiser's site. This would mean your site could advertise your competitor's site without your consent. An example of a Meta MS Smart tags: Recommendations for Meta MS Smart tags: It is recommended not to use the Meta MS Smart tags. Microsoft discontinued Meta MS Smart tags technology. If you are working with an SEO firm that demands to insert these tags, quickly find a new SEO company. Meta MSN (No ODP) The Meta MSN (No ODP) tag is used for your description in the MSN search results instead of the description used in DMOZ. An example of a Meta MSN (No ODP) tag: Recommendation for Meta MSN (No ODP) tag: It is optional to use Meta MSN (No ODP) tag. If you are unhappy with the description from DMOZ, which most Webmasters are, use the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag. While this is only good for MSNBot, you can sub "Robots" for "MSNBOT" in the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag to be valid for all bots. As of right now, however, MSN is the only search engine using descriptions straight from DMOZ. Note: Using the Meta MSN (No ODP) tag will not remove the DMOZ listing immediately. It can take up to four weeks. Meta Pragma No Cache The Meta Pragma No Cache tag is used to prevent visitors from seeing a cached version of a specific page. The Meta Pragma No Cache tag forces the browser to pull information from the server each time the page is viewed. An example of the Meta Pragma No Cache tag: Recommendations for the Meta Pragma No Cache tag: The Meta Pragma No Cache tag has no affect on search engines and is mainly implemented with the intent to help users. For example: If you have a site that changes on a daily basis, the Meta Pragma No Cache tag would ensure that the visitor sees the most recent version of the page. However, since you are pulling information from the server each time a visitor views the page, the load time will be affected as well as incurring increased server activity. Google has stated: "The http-equiv values pragma and expires are attempts at bypassing caches without having to set the HTTP headers correctly. These are probably unnecessary uses; any scenario where there is a legitimate reason to limit caching, the author is going to have enough control over the server to send the appropriate headers. In addition, the meta tags can't be considered reliable (e.g. proxies and transparent caches aren't going to honor them)." In my opinion, it is better to set the HTTP headers correctly. To learn how to do this, view our article (must be an All Access Member of the SEO Revolution). Note: The above also applies to the Meta Expires Tag. Meta Publisher: The Meta Publisher tag is used to declare the name and version number of the publishing tool used to create the page. The Meta Publisher tag is the same as the Meta Generator tag. Could be used by tool vendors to assess market penetration. An example of the Meta Publisher tag: Recommendations for the Meta Publisher tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Publisher tag. If you have the Meta Publisher tag, delete them if possible. The Meta Publisher tag serves no purpose for your pages. Meta Rating The Meta Rating tag is used to display a content rating similar to the movie rating system (i.e. PG-13). An example of the Meta Rating tag: There is not a set form of this tag, nor is there any official statement from the W3C. Some sites recommend using this tag, however, it is just fictitious as the governing body of HTML has no reference to it, and according to our testing, has no merit. Recommendations for Meta Rating tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Rating tag. The fact that there is not a set form for the Meta Rating tag suggests you would be better off getting a rating from the International International Content Rating Association. Read more on Meta Rating Tag Explained. Meta Refresh The Meta Refresh tag is used to specify a delay in seconds before the browser automatically reloads the document or URL specified. An example of the Meta Refresh tag: Recommendations for the Meta Refresh tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Refresh tag. Search engines can detect the use of the Meta Refresh tag and they consider it Spam. Penalty is either ignoring the page or banning your site completely from the index. You should use a 301 or 302 redirect instead. To get more information on how to do redirects properly, subscribe to our paid membership and check out the SEO Revolution Newsletter archive. Meta Reply To The Meta Reply To tag is used to harvest email addresses. The Meta Reply To tag is a Spammers tag. The Meta Reply To tag picks up your email address, then hits you fast and hard with offers a plenty. An example of a Meta Reply To tag: Recommendations for the Meta Reply To tag: It is highly recommended not to use the Meta Reply To tag as it is used as a Spammer method. Meta Resource Type The Meta Resource Type tag is used to declare the resource of a page. An example of a Meta Resource Type tag: Recommendations for the Meta Resource Type tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Resource Type tag. Use the DTD Declaration instead. Meta Revisit After The Meta Revisit After tag is used to inform search engines when to come back and index your site again. It has been stated that the Meta Revisit After tag will boost your site's rankings with search engines that credit fresh pages. This information is false and has no basis. An example of the Meta Revisit After tag: Recommendations for the Meta Revisit After tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Revisit After tag. Search engines will not obey the Meta Revisit After tag and come back to index your site on their own schedule, not when you tell them to. Read more on Meta Revisit After Meta Robots The Meta Robots tag control search engine robots on a per-page basis. Tell Robots they may traverse the page, but not index it. An example of the Meta Robots tag: Recommendation for the Meta Robots tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Robots tag as the search engines often ignore this tag. If you need to control the search engine robots, use a robots.txt file or modify your HTAccess file instead. Many people are concerned that if a bot comes to their site through a subpage and not their homepage, the robots.txt file will not be read. This is not true. The robots.txt is read each time a good boy comes to a new domain. You can verify this through your web logs. Meta Set Cookie The Meta Set Cookie tag is a cookie used to set a cookie in the user's web browser. If you use an expiration date, the cookie is considered permanent and will be saved to disk (until it expires), otherwise it will be considered valid only for the current session and will be erased upon closing the Web browser. An example of the Meta Set Cookie tag: Recommendations for the Meta Set Cookie tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Set Cookie tag. While the Meta Set Cookie tag was used years ago to set cookies, cookies can now be set and customized very easily. If you need assistance with cookies, our programming staff can assist you for a nominal fee. Meta Subject The Meta Subject tag is used to declare the subject of the web site. An example of the Meta Subject tag: Recommendations of Meta Subject tag: It is recommended not to use the Meta Subject tag. Any third party agent, including browsers and search engines, does not support the Meta Subject tag. Meta Title The Meta Title tag is used to declare the title of the page. The Meta Title tag would normally have the same title as contained in the tag. An example of the Meta Title tag: Recommendation for the Meta Title tag: It is recommended to use the Meta Title tag with caution. According to testing, Yahoo! and MSN index the Meta Title tag, but its effect on the algorithm is unknown inconsistent test results. Read more on the Meta Title.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SEO Headers and sub-headers</h1> 2009-02-27T23:23:00.000-08:00 Headers Headers and sub-headers are the “titles” that appear in the Web page. They are usually bigger and bolder than the rest of the text, and summarize the themes of the paragraphs that follow. Most experts agree that they carry more weight than the rest of the body copy. Headers should reflect the title of the page, but shouldn’t be identical. This is because a variation of the title can help you cast a wider net, and also because duplication of title and header can appear “spammy” or “over-optimized” to the search engines. Body Copy Your page-specific, keyword-rich body copy is also important. You should be using your keyword-rich phrases and variations, too. Your copy also needs to read well. Bold and italics can help the reader scan the material for the most important ideas, and some experts believe this can also affect the search engine ranking of the page. Intra-Site Links Search engines give extra-weight to the words used in an intra-site link (from one page to another within your site) and--to a lesser degree--the words around the link. So, instead of “learn more” or “click here”, use keyword-rich links such as, “Southern Maine Landscaping,” or “Pesticide-Free Gardening.” Meta-Descriptions Meta-descriptions don’t appear on the page, but rather in the source code. The only time people will see them is on the search engine results page under the big, blue title tag link. There’s some debate on whether meta-descriptions help with your rankings, (I think they have little to no value,) but a well-crafted meta-description on a search results page may get a person to click on your link rather than a competitor’s. Think of this as a short ad; what will compel a Google-user to click on your link? Like title tags, meta-descriptions should be unique and reflect the content on the page. Meta-Keywords Got that time machine ready? Search engines give no weight to meta-keywords anymore. We generally recommend creating a list of keywords and using the same list throughout the site because they’re a giant waste of time! What is the proper formatting for a title tag? For example:- My targeted keywords for this article are * How to improve keyword ranking * How to improve keyword density * Keyword density * Keyword ranking You can write web page meta title as below 1. How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking? 2. Keyword Ranking - How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking? Keyword Density 3. How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking? Keyword Ranking Keyword Density 4. How to Improve Keyword Ranking? How to Improve Keyword Density? 5. How to Improve Keyword Ranking and Keyword Density? 6. How to Improve Keyword Ranking & Keyword Density, Keyword Ranking & Keyword Density 7. How to Improve Keyword Ranking & Keyword Density, Keyword Ranking & Keyword Density I would like to stress on the phrase “Keyword Ranking” so I decided to select choice #2 “Keyword Ranking - How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking? Keyword Density” After I need to think about how to highlight my targeted keyword in the content to improve keyword density. Targeted Keywords need to be place in headings as HTML code below:- <h1>How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking?</h1> Then I may need to stress on other keywords look like this:- <h2>Keyword Ranking</h2> <h3>What is Keyword Ranking?<h3> Also I’m going to create anchor texts as unordered list and without bullet style. I will build summary of anchor menus and link it to each heading. I also insert the title for each link eg. <ul style="list-style:none"> <li><a href="#howto" title="How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking?">How to Improve Your Keyword Ranking?</a></li> <li><a href="#keyword-ranking" title="Keyword Ranking">Keyword Ranking</a></li> <li><a href="#what-is-keyword-ranking" title="What is Keyword Ranking?">What is Keyword Ranking?</a></li> </ul> It will be good for visitors to know where they are if I create an internal navigation or breadcrumbs above the main heading or H1. eg. Home > Our Blog > SEO > How to improve your keyword ranking? For any internal links, Please keep in mind and do create the title for each link!!! It will be useful to improve your keyword density and get better ranking at the same time. • Title tag • Description Meta Tag • URL Structure • Site Navigation • Content Creation • Anchor Text • Heading Tags (H1, H2, etc.) • Optimizing Images • Effective of Robots.txt • Rel=”nofollow” • Website Promotion • Webmaster Tools • Web Analytics • More Helpful Resources<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SEO in 3 Months</h1> 2009-02-27T23:22:00.000-08:00 In about 3 months you will see some Top 10 results, but in about 6 months you will see much better results on most keywords and engines. Search engine optimization summary * A combination of On page and offpage criteria * Knowing your market * Researching your keywords * Implimenting search engine friendly design * Optimizing your visible text * SEO-ing your header * Utilizing alt tags, anchors and links * Taking advantage of inbound links and pagerank * Making it easy for the visitor when they get there * Avoiding frames - Java and flash in moderation Initial Consultation & Keywords As the initial step of SEO, one of our analysts will review your website and identify which areas need optimization to make the site search engine friendly. Oftentimes, sites may have duplicate content, session ID numbers, flash content, dynamic content and other such problems which prevent webpages from being indexed. In addition, we will review your keywords and use keyword research tools to create a list of the most searched terms for your website or industry. Content Writing We create content that is not only well optimized and grammatically correct, but also is appealing to your readers and potential customers. Keywords will be integrated in your content using proper SEO keyword densities. Our writers will consult with you to ensure that the essence of your website is not compromised and that you are happy with the content we create. For sites with very little content or a greater degree of industry competition, we can also write original, 300 to 600-word articles which are keyword rich and related to your products or services. The articles would then be posted on your website to increase its content. Website Optimization Our optimization engineers are well-experienced Web developers and programmers who have knowledge of all kinds of website technologies such as PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, etc. The optimization engineers will take care of the technical parts of your optimization and tweak the backend of your website to make it search engine friendly. This process will include creating or modifying meta tags, title tags, alt image tags, internal linking structures, site maps, duplicate content, flash content, session ID problems, dynamic content and shopping carts. Link Development The development of incoming links from well-established websites is one of the major variables in attaining high search engine rankings. Link development is absolutely essential to your website’s success and is a major part of the optimization service that we offer. A high quantity of quality links can be developed through a variety of means, including: • One-way links from directories and other related sites • Reciprocal link exchanges with related sites • Fee-based directory submissions We may also offer the following services on a case-by-case basis: • Article writing and submission to article directories • Blog postings and/or creation • Press release writing and submissions • Social Media Optimization (SMO) and postings Submission After the optimization process is complete, we will submit your website to all the major search engines and directories, including Google, Yahoo and MSN. In addition, we will submit your website to fee-based directories such as Yahoo Directory, Best of The Web, GoGuides, Business.com and others. We will also manually “hand submit” your website to 300 to 500 directories that we have researched and found to help in developing link popularity. Lastly, if your website has indexing issues, we will create and submit sitemaps to both Google and Yahoo via their respective programs. Reporting We provide a baseline ranking report before we start work to show you how you rank prior to optimization; additional reports are then provided on a monthly basis. Our staff will monitor your results to make sure you are on the right track. To ensure your satisfaction, our staff will periodically be in touch with you via phone or email and provide you with project updates. As an optional service, we also offer installation of Google Analytics on your website for detailed traffic reporting. Guarantee Submit Express will guarantee at least 20 top 10 rankings within 6 months across the major 15 search engines or your money back. Ranking Reports Below are some ranking reports for our past clients. All clients will receive a similar ranking report as part of the optimization package. Note that we cannot publish the site URLs, because we do not want to give away our optimization techniques. Cost-Per-Click Advertising Services We will install tracking tools to measure your Return On Investment (ROI) and use only the best keywords that can maximize profits for you. We offer setup, monthly management, tracking and reporting services. Features Pay on a Cost-per-click (CPC) basis Receive traffic from major search engines such as Yahoo, Google, AOL, MSN, Ask, AltaVista, FAST and LookSmart Keyword research and recommendations Account setup, including the writing of Titles and Descriptions Training for 24/7 access or for those who prefer doing their own Web management Tracking code installations on your website Weekly or monthly maintenance and management Weekly or monthly reports Opt-in Email Advertising We only offer 100% opt-in email addresses, meaning that the subscribers have asked to receive information on subjects in which they are interested. We offer no junk mail or bulk emails. We have a "NO SPAM" policy. Press Release Services Enhance your online visibility, create product and service branding and increase traffic to your website with the Submit Express press release service. Newsletter Advertising We have two newsletters available for advertising, targeted to webmasters and website owners. This is one of the cheapest ways to reach thousands of people. Our advertisers in the past have seen very high click through rates. Page Snooper tool shows the HTML source code of a website you choose. On page/Off page characteristics defined Special attention should be given to: Title, meta description, H1, H2...H6, , . Keyword proximity, keyword density and relevance...more on this later. Off Page Characteristics refer to all links (both from pages contained within your own website and from pages of other websites) that point to your specific page(s). The term "pagerank" is specifically designated to evaluate and weight "off page" criteria. Special attention should be given to: anchor text, Reference_tags, "title" attribute and "target_"... more on this later. Step 1: Know your market Keyword research The life blood of SEO What keywords are people searching with? what keywords people are using to find and purchase your products and services. site that will not only reflect those product and services Finally once you have decided which pages fit with which keywords name each page to reflect the most competitive keyword for that page. Create an excel reference file so that later when consider your "off page" characteristics you have an easy map THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT! (most important keyword of this page).html Keyword A,B,C (most important keyword of this page).html Keyword D,E,F (most important keyword of this page).html Keyword H,I,J The optimization you can see From the last page you learned that each page of your site is going to target a maximum of 3 search phrases (keyword phrases). I will now cover how to write these pages. Think headings The H1, H2 ...H6 tags are given special relevancy weight, and by virtue of this logic "if something has an entire paragraph labeled and dedicated to it, it must be important" man I love logic! It is for this reason that you should plan to integrate your keywords into your heading, you don't have to go extreme just use one H1 for your most important keyword and two H2's, one for each or your secondary keyword phrases. Also it is not necessary to try to find ways to use H4,H5,H6 as they are not weighted heavily enough to consider. In fact I only use them in my external css file so that I can avoid color font and size tags altogether in my text. Be the first in line You should try to get your main keyword phrases as high up in your source code as possible this is again for a logical reason, the logic being "the higher up a word or phrase is in the body of a document the more important it must be." Again ya gotta love logic. Here is an example of what your page should look like: Heading with most important keyword This is the paragraph where your most important keyword should be and if it makes sence try to get your second and third most important keywords in as well here. Either One of your 2 minor keywords In this paragraph repeat the above pattern of 1st 2nd and 3rd most important keywords and as you can see bolding and italicizing them at least once doesn’t hurt and actually gives you a very small boost ( recommended but don’t go bolding every keyword on the page) and don't forget to repeat another H2 for your third keyword phrase. Keyword Density The final point on visible text is keyword density. Simply stated keyword density is the number of occurrences of a keyword divided by the total word count. For this I try to keep my initial density to between 3-7% however this number may have to change depending on the level of competition. Also be warned that the text used in anchors <a href="page.html">this is your anchor text </a> effects your density. Don't worry if your initial density is lower than that of your competitors as you will learn later in this article there are many ways to effect your keyword density other than placing your keywords in your visible text. Here is an example of what a basic header should look like: <head> <title>A maximum of 3 keyword phrases and 55 characters

(Google all but ignores this tag DONT STUFF IT!)

(some debate whether this is necessary but it certainly does not hurt - tells robots to follow links)

There are some times when more code in the header is necessary to operate JAVA script and call css etc. In such instances there are advanced techniques that will allow you to pack away the javascript and css in external files so that it is called from .js and .css external files.

To call your JAVA script simply cut the JAVA from the header from and save in a file called java.js and call it using this line of code:

Similarly to call your css from and ext file use this line of code:

Finally, recall the spreadsheet you created for which keywords went with which page. Add to that spreadsheet your pages titles and descriptions beside the list of keywords so that when you need to boost those keywords you can link directly to the page that is optimized for them and have a complete synergy between: Inbound anchor text (see next section), Title, description, headers, , and density.

It makes sense that when a spider sees that all important elements of your page (both on page and off page) all contain the same keyword phrases that It will rank you very high for those phrases.

Finishing your onpage optimization
Header and body done, what's next?

So now you have the perfect initial keyword density for the combination of your header and your page text, you have keyword loaded headings, bolded keywords, italicized keywords, and a large proximity near the very beginning of your source code. What's next?
Anchors and Links

The final 2 factors that must be addressed to complete your "On page" optimization are your alt tags, anchors, and links. The combination of appropriate usage of these final 2 items in conjunction with the framework optimization you have already done will make you unbeatable once Page Rank is thrown into the mix.

Using anchors

Anchors are used to reference specific locations on a page from other locations on that same page. These "on page links" are yet another place to get your main keywords in and boost that "on page" density.

To place an anchor first decide what is the best use, an easy way to do this is the old "back to the top" at the end of a page. Except as we are smart little optimizers and we know use our keywords instead of phrases like "back to the top". Here is an example:

At the top of my page I place my anchor using this code:

At the bottom of my page I place this href:

SEO

This produces this link: SEO and now I have created a same page link containing my keyword and thus increased my density as well as received added weight by virtue of it being an anchor.
Using your links for "on page" optimization

There are two ways you can utilize your links for search engine optimization.

1. You can use your links for your "on page" optimization;
2. You can use your links for "off page" optimization.

When using your links for onpage optimization consider the following:
1. Your ">anchor text effects your density
2. Href="these words all count towards what is called reference_tags density"

Knowing these 2 facts allows you to incorporate your keywords into your links from inception and when you have a page that you think is written to perfection and you don't want keyword loading clogging up the flow, using your links is a great way to make up added density and keyword weight.
href="http://www.mydomain.com/page.html" vs href="page.html" Which do I use?

The only time you use the full mydomain.com is if the domain itself has keywords that the page the link is pointing to or the page the link is on, is targeting those keywords, otherwise you should go with page.html as this drastically reduces filesize especially for pages with a lot of internal links. * note one other exception is for the index always link to your index using http://www.domain.com so that your internal PR boost matches your externap PR boost, your link partners linked to you with http://www.domain.com and so should you.

Utilizing your inbound links
Pagerank - where do I begin?

When considering how offpage characteristics effect your sites ability to rank well for given keyword terms It cannot be stressed enough that "Page rank is Page to Page, (NOT SITE TO SITE) and independent of URL designation". What this means is that once your site enters into the PR system ie: indexed by Google by virtue of backlinks from and external source domain, then a link from an internal page with "X" amount of PR contributes exactly the same PR weight as a page from a different URL with "X" amount of PR weight to distribute (all other factors being equal).
Getting my link popularity started - what does it take?

In order for pagerank to be calculated by Google's algorithm for any page on your site that page must first have been found by the Google spider (robot) through a backlink.

"Backlink: a link from one unique URL designation to another - alternatively: a link from one page to another."

Once you have recieved a backlink from a page that has been indexed by the Google spider you are eligible to compete for PR.
A link counts twice

There are 2 ways you can benefit from backlinks:

First you get a certain amount of PR weight points as dictated by the google PR calculation algorithm (see the article on the Google pagerank page).

Second, and some argue more importantly, you also get an added ranking boost for whatever keywords are contained within the anchor text href="yourdomain.com">Anchor and this precisely describes why sites almost always rank #1 for their domain name.

It is a common misconception that there is special weight given to domain names when in fact the reason a site generally ranks well for its domain name is because all of the links pointing to that domain place your domain name in the anchor text. ie: href="yourdomain.com">yourdomain.com

This is a great opportunity to utilize this little know anchor text boost to place well for your chosen keywords. The way to take advantage of this added boost is to request that your keywords are placed in your backlink anchor instead of your domain name.
Here is how to properly utilize a link acceptance

When a request for a link from another webmasters has been accepted send a thank you letter and include your specific HTML code so that you not only save them effort but you get a backlink that reflects your keywords and not your domain.

Your thank you letter should look like this:

Dear webmaster,

Thank you for your gratious willingness to provie a text link to my site. For you convenience I have written out the source code that best reflects the page you are linking to please cut and paste this exact code into your source to reflect the most appropriate link:
Keyword

I thank you again for your linking to my site and will gladly link back to your site with any specific html that you provide.

Warmest regards,
Grateful Webmaster

In short, backlinks are a great asset if utilized correctly and remember that the same principals apply to internal links as apply to the links you recieve from other domains and other webmasters. If your index page is optimized for keyword "a" then make sure that all of your internal pages that link back to the homepage use "a" as the anchor text DO NOT USE "home" for a link back to your index page or you waste the most controllable opportunity to boost your own keyword search engine positions.

Complicated SEO Issues - I'm not getting spidered, why?
Frames:

There are many pitfalls in design that can hinder a spiders ability to completely (or even partially) index the content within a given page. One of the biggest mistakes webmasters are still making is that of using "frames".

Frames are a design convention used to utilize independant scrollable regions within a single URL designation (or so it appears). Frames are actually divided into multiple URL designations and are generally not spiderable by the search engines.

I do not want to get into how to optimize framed sites here as this is a tutorial about "proper seo" not "patchwork seo" if you have frames in your website then my advice is to redesign, as you can use CSS to give an equivilant effect if that scrolldown is really something you are not willing to give up. I will however be writing an article for those of you who are absulutely unwilling to give up your frames so that you can at least provide something for the spiders to love you for and thus improve your rankings somewhat but these techniques are far inferior to just building your website the right way in the first place.
Javascript:

Again, real pretty but excessive use is generally not necessary. Don't get me wrong even I use javascript on almost all of my sites but the key is to use it sparingly. The reason for this is that spiders cannot read javascript and thus any link or text portrayed by such Javascript will not be counted in your indexing and thus produce lost opportunity. My suggestion is for all webmasters to "STOP USING JAVASCRIPT FOR NAVIGATION" use HTML text links instead. Your images can be called in Java as with your pretty little rollovers but when it comes to things you want indexed Java is not the way to go.

Pack your javascript away

When calling javascript editors place the Java protocalls in header of your page: In order to save file size and maximize load times cut out that java protocall and paste it in an external file (i usually call mine java.js) then to call the java I place just this one line of code: this reduces the filesize considerably with no adverse side effects.
Flash:

Search Service Search Operators

2009-02-27T23:11:00.000-08:00
Search Service Search Operators Web Search allinanchor:, allintext:, allintitle:, allinurl:, cache:, define:, filetype:, id:, inanchor:, info:, intext:, intitle:, inurl:, phonebook:, related:, site:

allinanchor:
If you start your query with allinanchor:, Google restricts results to pages containing all query terms you specify in the anchor text on links to the page. For example, [ allinanchor: best museums sydney ] will return only pages in which the anchor text on links to the pages contain the words “best,” “museums,” and “sydney.”
Anchor text is the text on a page that is linked to another web page or a different place on the current page. When you click on anchor text, you will be taken to the page or place on the page to which it is linked. When using allinanchor: in your query, do not include any other search operators. The functionality of allinanchor: is also available through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.

allintext:
If you start your query with allintext:, Google restricts results to those containing all the query terms you specify in the text of the page. For example, [ allintext: travel packing list ] will return only pages in which the words “travel,” “packing,” and “list” appear in the text of the page. This functionality can also be obtained through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.
allintitle:
If you start your query with allintitle:, Google restricts results to those containing all the query terms you specify in the title. For example, [ allintitle: detect plagiarism ] will return only documents that contain the words “detect” and “plagiarism” in the title. This functionality can also be obtained through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.
The title of a webpage is usually displayed at the top of the browser window and in the first line of Google’s search results for a page. The author of a website specifies the title of a page with the HTML TITLE element. There’s only one title in a webpage. When using allintitle: in your query, do not include any other search operators. The functionality of allintitle: is also available through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.
In Image Search, the operator allintitle: will return images in files whose names contain the terms that you specify.In Google News, the operator allintitle: will return articles whose titles include the terms you specify.
allinurl:
If you start your query with allinurl:, Google restricts results to those containing all the query terms you specify in the URL. For example, [ allinurl: google faq ] will return only documents that contain the words “google” and “faq” in the URL, such as “www.google.com/help/faq.html”. This functionality can also be obtained through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences.
In URLs, words are often run together. They need not be run together when you’re using allinurl:.
In Google News, the operator allinurl: will return articles whose titles include the terms you specify.
The Uniform Resource Locator, more commonly known as URL, is the address that specifies the location of a file on the Internet. When using allinurl: in your query, do not include any other search operators. The functionality of allinurl: is also available through the Advanced Web Search page, under Occurrences
inanchor:
If you include inanchor: in your query, Google will restrict the results to pages containing the query terms you specify in the anchor text or links to the page. For example, [ restaurants inanchor:gourmet ] will return pages in which the anchor text on links to the pages contain the word “gourmet” and the page contains the word “restaurants.”
insubject:
If you include insubject: in your query, Google will restrict articles in Google Groups to those that contain the terms you specify in the subject. For example, [ insubject:”falling asleep” ] will return Google Group articles that contain the phrase “falling asleep” in the subject.
Equivalent to intitle:.
intext:
The query intext:term restricts results to documents containing term in the text. For instance, [ Hamish Reid intext:pandemonia ] will return documents that mention the word “pandemonia” in the text, and mention the names “Hamish” and “Reid” anywhere in the document (text or not).Note: There must be no space between the intext: and the following word.
Putting intext: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allintext: at the front of your query, e.g., [ intext:handsome intext:poets ] is the same as [ allintext: handsome poets ].

intitle:
The query intitle:term restricts results to documents containing term in the title. For instance, [ flu shot intitle:help ] will return documents that mention the word “help” in their titles, and mention the words “flu” and “shot” anywhere in the document (title or not).Note: There must be no space between the intitle: and the following word.
Putting intitle: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allintitle: at the front of your query, e.g., [ intitle:google intitle:search ] is the same as [ allintitle: google search ].

inurl:
If you include inurl: in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the URL. For instance, [ inurl:print site:www.googleguide.com ] searches for pages on Google Guide in which the URL contains the word “print.” It finds pdf files that are in the directory or folder named “print” on the Google Guide website. The query [ inurl:healthy eating ] will return documents that mention the words “healthy” in their URL, and mention the word “eating” anywhere in the document. Note: There must be no space between the inurl: and the following word. Putting inurl: in front of every word in your query is equivalent to putting allinurl: at the front of your query, e.g., [ inurl:healthy inurl:eating ] is the same as [ allinurl: healthy eating ].
In URLs, words are often run together. They need not be run together when you’re using inurl:.link: The query link:URL shows pages that point to that URL. For example, to find pages that point to Google Guide’s home page, enter: [ link:www.googleguide.com ] Note:
[ link:www.google.com -site:google.com ]
According to Google’s documentation, “you cannot combine a link: search with a regular keyword search.” Also note that when you combine link: with another advanced operator, Google may not return all the pages that match. The following queries should return lots of results, as you can see if you remove the -site: term in each of these queries.
Find links to the Google home page not on Google’s own site. Find links to the UK Owners Direct home page not on its own site. [ link:www.www.ownersdirect.co.uk -site:ownersdirect.co.uk ]

Website Optimization Activity

2009-02-27T23:09:00.000-08:00
Website Optimization

Our SEO experts are well-experienced Web developers and programmers who have knowledge of all kinds of website technologies such as PHP, ASP, JSP, ColdFusion, etc. We take care of the technical parts of your optimization and tweak the backend of your website to make it search engine friendly. This process will include creating or modifying meta tags, title tags, alt image tags, internal linking structures, site maps, duplicate content, flash content, session ID problems, dynamic content and shopping carts.

We may also offer the following services on a case-by-case basis:

• Article writing and submission to article directories
• Blog postings and/or creation
• Press release writing and submissions
• Social Media Optimization (SMO) and postings

#1. Keyword Analysis: Keywords provided by you are highly generalized. We won't get targeted customer from these keywords. We will be analyzing keywords, which will generate genuine traffic. Keyword analysis includes analysis of those terms & phrases, which are searched by users to find specific information or on internet. It also includes the analysis of the competition for those keywords on the internet.

Keyword research
The life blood of SEO
What keywords are people searching with?
what keywords people are using to find and purchase your products and services.
site that will not only reflect those product and services
Finally once you have decided which pages fit with which keywords name each page to reflect the most competitive keyword for that page. Create an excel reference file so that later when consider your "off page" characteristics you have an easy map THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT!

(most important keyword of this page).html Keyword A,B,C
(most important keyword of this page).html Keyword D,E,F
(most important keyword of this page).html Keyword H,I,J

#2: Discover Your Competitors

• Competitor rank in the Search Engines
• Number of incoming links
• What keywords are in the title of linking page
• % of links containing keywords in the link text
• The PageRank of linking pages
• The Alexa traffic ranking information

#3: Optimize Your Title
The Title and META tags should be different on every page of your website if you wish for most search engines to store and list them in the search results.
This one excercise could make or break your SEO campaign. Click-Through Rate (CTR) plays an instrumental role in how relevant Google thinks your website is.

#4: Optimize Your META Tags
keep it under 150 characters and to not repeat your keywords more than 3 times. It may be a coincidence, but I've also noticed ranking improvements when I put my keywords at the beginning of the description. Here's the syntax:
if you repeat your keywords more than 3 times it can be a pretty good indication to the search engine that you are trying to spam their search results.

Here is an example of what a basic header should look like:

A maximum of 3 keyword phrases and 55 characters

(Google all but ignores this tag DONT STUFF IT!)

(some debate whether this is necessary but it certainly does not hurt - tells robots to follow links)

#5: Use Headings
Headings play an important role in organizing information, so be sure to include at least H1-H3 when assembling your page. Using cascading style Sheets (CSS), I was able to make my h1 at the top of this page more appealing. Here's a piece of code you can pop into your heading:

#6: Use Title and ALT Attributes
we add a title attribute and include our keywords.
Using the Title Attribute is a direct method of telling the search engines about the relevance of the link. It's also a W3C standard for making your page accessible to disabled people. In other words, blind folks can navigate through your website using a special browser that reads Title and ALT attributes.

Content Writing
We create content that is not only well optimized and grammatically correct, but also is appealing to your readers and potential customers. Keywords will be integrated in your content using proper SEO keyword densities.
Write 300 to 600-word articles which are keyword rich and related to your products or services.

Using anchors

Anchors are used to reference specific locations on a page from other locations on that same page. These "on page links" are yet another place to get your main keywords in and boost that "on page" density.

To place an anchor first decide what is the best use, an easy way to do this is the old "back to the top" at the end of a page. Except as we are smart little optimizers and we know use our keywords instead of phrases like "back to the top". Here is an example:

At the top of my page I place my anchor using this code:

At the bottom of my page I place this href:

SEO

This produces this link: SEO and now I have created a same page link containing my keyword and thus increased my density as well as received added weight by virtue of it being an anchor.
Using your links for "on page" optimization

There are two ways you can utilize your links for search engine optimization.

1. You can use your links for your "on page" optimization;
2. You can use your links for "off page" optimization.

When using your links for onpage optimization consider the following:
1. Your ">anchor text effects your density
2. Href="these words all count towards what is called reference_tags density"

Knowing these 2 facts allows you to incorporate your keywords into your links from inception and when you have a page that you think is written to perfection and you don't want keyword loading clogging up the flow, using your links is a great way to make up added density and keyword weight.
href="http://www.mydomain.com/page.html" vs href="page.html" Which do I use?

The only time you use the full mydomain.com is if the domain itself has keywords that the page the link is pointing to or the page the link is on, is targeting those keywords, otherwise you should go with page.html as this drastically reduces filesize especially for pages with a lot of internal links. * note one other exception is for the index always link to your index using http://www.domain.com so that your internal PR boost matches your externap PR boost, your link partners linked to you with http://www.domain.com and so should you.

Keyword Density

The final point on visible text is keyword density. Simply stated keyword density is the number of occurrences of a keyword divided by the total word count. For this I try to keep my initial density to between 3-7% however this number may have to change depending on the level of competition.

Also be warned that the text used in anchors this is your anchor text effects your density. Don't worry if your initial density is lower than that of your competitors as you will learn later in this article there are many ways to effect your keyword density other than placing your keywords in your visible text.

#7. Content optimization, Bold, Italic tag

#8. Page Renaming: We can use keywords in the web pages URL.

#9. Social Bookmarking
#10. Inclusion of Sitemaps: HTML Sitemap helps visitor to navigate through the website easily whereas XML sitemap (recommended by Google) helps Google to identify and index number of pages on our website.

#11. Robots file: It helps search engine crawler to understand which pages to index, we can also use it to restrict robots from indexing certain confidential data (if any).

#12. Image Optimization: Search Engine crawler can't read images it understands only text. Alt tags, which are also, know as alternate tags provide text to images where we can incorporate our Keywords.

Javascript and css in external files
To call your JAVA script simply cut the JAVA from the header from and save in a file called java.js and call it using this line of code:

Similarly to call your css from and ext file use this line of code:

#13. Directory Submission: It will help us to get traffic and one way links for our website. One-way link means getting our site link on various directories without giving link back. It gives more weightage to our website.

After the optimization process is complete, we will submit your website to all the major search engines and directories, including Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Lastly, if your website has indexing issues, we will create and submit sitemaps to both Google and Yahoo via their respective programs.

#14. Link Building: - Link exchange is an important part of search engine marketing which helps to enhance our search engine ranking, increase traffic and to increase Page rank of our website.

A high quantity of quality links can be developed through a variety of means, including:

• One-way links from directories and other related sites
• Reciprocal link exchanges with related sites
• Fee-based directory submissions

#15. Part Five; Subsection a - Where to Get Links
Web Directories

First order of the day is to submit to quality web directories.
(Submit the most appropriate category)

#16. Topical Directories
One of the better quality links that may give you targeted traffic is a listing in a topical web directory. If you sell widgets, go over to widget-world.com and get listing.

#16. Inclusion of Articles: Inclusion of articles which are related to our website and services will help bringing in visitors on our.

#17. Forums Submission: It will help us to get one-way links. It also message boards, discussion boards, where different user can discuss about its product.

#18. Blog Submission: It will help us in commenting on different issues related to installation, maintenance of various power services. And through this many people will come to know about the services provided by our website.

Contribute intelligently to blog or forum discussions. Include a link to your website in your signature.

Press Release Services

Enhance your online visibility, create product and service branding and increase traffic to your website with the Submit Express press release service.

#19. RSS
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and sometimes content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading.

Newsletter Advertising
We have two newsletters available for advertising, targeted to webmasters and website owners.
This is one of the cheapest ways to reach thousands of people. Our advertisers in the past have seen very high click through rates.

#20 . Writing Testimonials

One great way to get links and make people happy is to give other webmasters testimonials. Do you like your web host? Neither do I, but it doesn’t stop me from offering a testimonial to my web host which includes a link back to my website.

#21. Changes in Website Design: Since, search engine crawler gives more important to the content appearing on the top left of the website. We will be making little bit of changes in website design. By placing the relevant keyword on top left of the pages instead of website address.

22.Reporting

We provide a baseline ranking report before we start work to show you how you rank prior to optimization; additional reports are then provided on a monthly basis. Our staff will monitor your results to make sure you are on the right track. To ensure your satisfaction, our staff will periodically be in touch with you via phone or email and provide you with project updates. As an optional service, we also offer installation of Google Analytics on your website for detailed traffic reporting.

Cost-Per-Click Advertising Services
We will install tracking tools to measure your Return On Investment (ROI) and use only the best keywords that can maximize profits for you. We offer setup, monthly management, tracking and reporting services.
Features

Pay on a Cost-per-click (CPC) basis
Receive traffic from major search engines such as Yahoo, Google, AOL, MSN, Ask, AltaVista, FAST and LookSmart
Keyword research and recommendations
Account setup, including the writing of Titles and Descriptions
Training for 24/7 access or for those who prefer doing their own Web management
Tracking code installations on your website
Weekly or monthly maintenance and management
Weekly or monthly reports

SEO Basic Steps

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1. Target keywords relevant to site content.
2. Use popular phrases from search engine queries.
3. Start page titles with keywords.
4. Use H1 header tags for headlines.
5. Write keyword-rich body copy.
6. Include keywords in linked text.
7. Render graphic navigation as accessible text.
8. Use keywords in image alt tags.
9. Provide a site map with text links.
10. Present data-base driven page URLs as text.
11. Make site architecture flat and wide, not deep.
12. Solicit in-bound links to achieve PageRanks.
13. List your site in Open Directory.
14. List your site in industry-specific directories.
15. Write keyword-rich meta tags for every page.
16. Name site directory files and folders with keywords.
17. Develop a custom error-message page.
18. Don't try to fool the spiders by cloaking content.
19. Don't use pop-up windows.
20. Don't exchange links with unknown/untrusted sites.

How SEO steps help improve visibility:

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The Google guide gives detailed examples and explains how these SEO steps help improve visibility:

* Create a unique, descriptive title tag for every web page. The title tag appears in the first line of the search results.
* Summarize page content in the description meta tag, which may be used as the snippet that appears under the page title.
* Structure URLs to include relevant keywords that visitor- and crawler-friendly.
* Provide a clear navigation hierarchy, using text (not graphics) for navigation links to guide visitors through the site.
* Include a site map and breadcrumbs for a quick, visual orientation to the site structure.
* Create compelling, useful and relevant content that visitors are looking for, find exclusively on your site, and will refer to in the future.
* Write descriptive anchor text for links to other pages, not "click here," to inform visitors about what's next and guide crawlers to deep pages.
* Use heading tags to create a visual hierarchy on the page -- headline, subhead, sub-subhead -- which takes visitors from the most to least important content.
* Name images with descriptive captions as alt text, which can be read by crawlers and visitors who browse text-only.
* Use robots.txt to steer crawlers away from searchable pages. E.g., a NOINDEX tag prevents a page from appearing in search results; a NOFOLLOW tag prevents crawlers from going from your page to an untrusted page (i.e., referenced in a blog comment).