Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category:
Optimizing Keywords for Search Engines
by: Rahman Mehraby
All SEO experts believe in the importance of optimizing keywords for search engines. Search engines need to know enough about your keywords so that they can help your pages visibility. If you’re optimizing keywords for every page of your site, search engines help those pages be found as well.
How’s Optimizing Keywords Done?
Before any other things, you need to select your keywords carefully and smartly. Keywords aren’t the words or phrases that you invent. You have to discover what searchers are typing to find what they want. Then, you choose the closest to the content you want to write and write with those keywords in your mind.
Use a Variety of them
To distinguish individual pages of your site from each other, optimizing keywords for search engines can help. Every webpage on your website should have its own keywords or key phrases. Search engines, then, realize your pages are different from each other. Also, they see what the difference is.
On the other hand, in optimizing keywords for search engines, it will be very useful if the keywords of various pages on your site are similar and/or relevant. This, of course, will be the best SEO tactic in terms of optimizing keywords and will enhance the content relevancy on your site.
Optimizing Keywords or Key Phrases?
Today only the known brands or very successful websites use keywords successfully. Does it sound disappointing? Don’t worry! What I mean is that one single word (common name) can hardly bring you targeted audience unless you’re well-known or famous for that single work.
So, what’s the solution? You have to get involved in optimizing keywords for search engines in a precise way.
Use a string of words, a key phrase. The longer a key phrase, the more targeted your site visitors. Of course, there’s some limit to it! These days, three-word key phrase or even four-word key phrase is the best to have.
For example, “affordable search engine optimization India” brings more targeted customer to your site than “seo India” or “seo packages” if you’re an SEO company in India trying to sell lower-priced search engine services in your country.
Where to Use them!
You’ve carefully been optimizing keywords for search engines by now. The outcome should now be used at your title tags, alt tags, first two headings, beginning and end of pages, middle of pages, menu links, inbound links, etc.
This doesn’t mean that you stuff the above positions with your keywords. Of course, the more inbound links with your keywords in them, the more benefit you get, specially from quality web pages outside your website.
How to Use them!
Once you’ve decide what key phrases to use and where and completed optimizing keywords, stick to them as they are. Never split them up by adding a word in the middle of such strings or words.
Key phrases should have appropriate weight, frequency and density on your web pages, not more not less than necessary. Otherwise, they will be seen as inefficient or spam!
Therefore, you should be extremely careful about how to use keywords or key phrases at your web pages.
How to Use Keywords Appropriately!
After you’ve completely done optimizing keywords for search engines, you should use them sufficiently and efficiently. This is something that search engines will find out easily. You also need to use good softwares or hire SEO experts to adjust this crucial point at your website.
While you’ve put all the above tactics into action, in your web pages, you could expect more targeted visitors. Obviously, this ends in having more customers who find you and buy what you’ve got to offer.
About The Author
Rahman Mehraby is mainly focused on Website Assessment as an initial step before taking any SEO Packages. He writes articles to help webmasters gain higher organic search engine placement. Visit his website at: http://www.site-booster.com.
Simple SEO: How To Create Content The Search Engines Will Like
by: Chris Malta
Improved search positioning means greater exposure to targeted traffic, but few E-Biz owners really understand how to run an effective search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. According to Andy Jenkins, founder of online business forum http://StomperNet.com, “Your web site ranking is determined, in large part, by the quality of your content - it must be both compelling to your visitors and consumable to the search engine spiders.”
A Matter of Substance
Jenkins reveals two key practices that can help you cooperate with the search engines and give them the kind of useful information they’re after:
Avoid Duplicate Content
When pages living on separate domains are extremely similar, the engines will classify them as “duplicate content” and rank them very poorly. One page will go in their normal index; the other will be relegated to their supplemental index, where none its value is manifested. This often poses a problem for eCommerce stores selling numerous similar items.
Every page of your web site probably has some design elements that are the same, like your navigation bar, header and footer, and any special messages, like “In Stock” or “Money Back Guarantee”. To keep from ending up in the supplemental index, you should strive to have at least more original content in your product descriptions than exists in the permanent template layout of your pages. In other words, if you have two hundred fifty words of repeating content on each page, you should also have at least two hundred fifty-one words per page of new and different content.
If writing interesting, witty descriptions of your products seems difficult, it may help to try manifesting your copy in some form of ownership. For instance, if you’re selling a box of tortellini, talk about how simple it is to cook, how good it tastes with pesto sauce, how wonderful it is to enjoy with your family around the dinner table. You’re simultaneously engaging your customers, sharing the benefits of using your product, and avoiding the mire of the supplemental index.
Implement Latent Semantic Indexing
Search engine algorithms have grown increasingly complex over time. Optimizing your copy is no longer a matter of stuffing it with keywords: “This pasta site is the best pasta site for the pasta lover’s pasta needs.” Now, in fact, repeating a keyword or phrase too often will raise red flags, and may even cause your site to drop in the rankings.
The engines have learned to recognize the relationships between many words. So to rank well for a keyword, you need to talk about things that relate to it, also know as “latent semantic indexing”. For example, if you’re trying to rank for the keyword “pasta”, you might talk about carbs, marinara sauce, fusilli, linguini, and so forth. It’s okay to sprinkle “pasta” throughout your copy, but concentrate on using latently related words. You’re generating copy that’s interesting to the users reading it, and palatable to the engines ranking it.
(Tip: To discover keywords latently related to your keywords, perform a Google search with a tilde in front of the keyword - like “~pasta”. You’ll bring back results containing latently related words: noodles, recipes, Italian, etc.)
While the search engines regularly revise their algorithms, the basic principles of SEO remain the same. You don’t need to play games or try to trick the engines to show up in their results. Advises Jenkins, “The engines want to give users the information they’re seeking. So if you create a user-friendly site with good, valuable content, you’re going to do well - period.”
About The Author
Product Sourcing Radio is Created and Hosted by Chris Malta and Robin Cowie of http://WorldwideBrands.com, Home of OneSource: The Internet’s Largest Source of Genuine, Factory-Direct Wholesalers for online sellers. Visit http://www.WorldwideBrands.com for more FREE E-Biz & Product Sourcing info!
Search Engine Optimisation – Myths, Risks and Pitfalls
by: Nicholas C Smith
From my experience, people who try to increase the flow of organic traffic to their websites domain will at some point attempt a whole bunch of “optimisation techniques” without knowing if any of it really has had, or is having, any effect at all. Some of the SEO techniques I have seen people attempt are, whilst quite useless, based on a good idea. Other methods continually amaze me. Perhaps people that try such things have heard spurious rumours of how to get their site into Google’s top ten listings from certain forums. Incidentally they are probably at such a point of desperation that they are willing to try anything to gain just ten more visits.
I am regularly inundated with the same questions such as: Is it worth submitting my site to 300 search engines? Will I get penalised for cross linking my sites? Should I pay to have high ranking sites link to mine? And what exactly does Google page rank do, if anything!?
Questions such as these have driven me into despair and consequently writing this article during which i will attempt to explain definitively the more common SEO myths, risks and pitfalls. In this article we will examine some of the more common beliefs.
Before we get to the list it is worth noting that I have not written it in a particular order and at times I have explained the topic the myth concerns before answering the question.
Link Building
Q)Will the more links that point to my website increase my sites placement in search engines?
It will help your website as far as the major search engines are concerned. The most popular search engines use the number of links aimed towards a website as an important factor in determining the sites placement. They look for your link to be coming from sites with; high traffic, quality content and a high page rank, amongst other things. Do no cross link, do not spam your address in forums and on social networks and do not put it on irrelevant sites, or even those that seem slightly dodgy. Take your time, aim for directories that are related to your website, aim for directories with page rank 3+ or aim for blogs or similar sites that are relevant to your content.
Q)Is it worth me buying a place on a high ranking directory?
So the idea with this is that, say, a directory has a Google page rank of 7 and is very popular. Any site on it will be getting a big rub off via a higher spot on search engine rankings. However the catch is the directory charges £50 a month for your listing. Is it worth it when there are so many free directories out there?
Personally I think it is worth it, as long as the site holds its high rank and doesn’t have thousands of listings competing with yours on it. The added bonus with pay for listings is that they usually review and include your site very quickly (24hours), which by itself may be worth paying for. And if you could buy 10 spots on decent directories your site will most likely become highly ranked on search engine results.
There are problems with this though. Firstly, it is said to be against Google’s terms of service - paying to get a higher listing on Google’s organic results. (Google want their results to show the best and most relevant websites, not those with the most money behind them) They are however, unlikely to be too bothered even if they do find out.
The next problem is the cost. For a small company or personal website it is too expensive to pay monthly for many directories to list them, and possibly not worth it. Lastly, it is not guaranteed to help your website. It should, but does not always. I have paid for listings before and noticed very little difference, whilst other times it has made a huge contribution to my sites ranking. So it may be a risk, but it can pay off extremely well.
Q)Will submitting a video about my site or product to places such as Youtube be of benefit to me?
A recent link building trend has been to submit a short video describing the webmasters site or the service it provides, to as many video submission sites as possible. The theory behind this being that search engines give more weight in their results to pages with videos. So if your site or product has a video on Youtube, when that product is searched for on the web that video will often come up in the top ten results. If this video has a link to your site in it, under it or as nearby as you can put it, it should be good news for you and your site. People find the video as it is ranked so highly in the results, watch the video, like what they see and then visit your site to perhaps purchase what they saw.
Does it work? At the time of writing, yes it does and it is probably worth doing. Make a video, even if it is just text, sound or a power point presentation, and then submit it to as many video and social networking sites as possible. People will find it and it will hopefully persuade them to visit your site. The only real problem with this being that the search engines will not like all of the “video spam” now being posted on the internet and are likely to change (lower) the priority of videos in their results.
Google Page Rank
Q)Will having a higher Google page rank increase the number of visitors to my site?
Before we can answer that we will have to look at what exactly Google page rank is. Google page rank is a spurious form of measurement for site popularity that the company introduced fairly recently. It is unknown to everyone, except possibly Google, how exactly it ranks sites. It is assumed however that its ranks depend upon on a mixture of traffic a site receives, external links pointing towards it and the content it contains. New websites may not have a page rank for many months. It is also possible to have a very successful website with thousands of visitors and sales and still not being ranked highly, if at all. This is because Google only ranks pages once every few months, probably around once every four-five months. So if you start your website and straight off advertise heavily you might recieve a high volume of traffic but it may still take months for Google to look at your site and rank it accordingly. Also, as a sites rank is dependent on more than just traffic l!
evels, in that scenario your site may still be ranked lowly once it is eventually seen.
To see a websites Google page rank you can download the Google toolbar and then once it is installed right click on it and select show page rank.
So back to the myth - Does having a higher Google page rank mean more visits to your site? Well, yes and no. No, because it alone doesn’t actually have any effect on search placement, and as such won’t increase traffic. Yes, because indirectly it will benefit your site. If you have a high page rank Google will prioritise your site and check back often to see if anything has changed, such as content, giving you a good chance to increase your standing with the search engine. Another benefit is that both people and sites are more willing to trust websites that have a high Google rank. For example, if you are submitting your site to directories you will want to submit it to a high Google rank directory as Google will check them more regularly and take more notice of them and their content (which will be your link). So indirectly, a high Google rank should mean more visits for your site.
Buying in Traffic
Q)Is it worth me buying 10000 hits for £££/$$$?
OK, we have all seen the adverts in our email promising thousands of targeted visits for an amazingly cheap cost. And at one point or another we have all been depressed enough to be tempted by them. But just say no.
The idea is, for say 100 pounds (or 200 dollars), a traffic company will direct ten thousand or so visitors to your site who are actually interested in your content. It sounds great and some companies will actually provide what they say as far as traffic to your site is concerned. However I have never found one where the traffic is actually targeted and people even bother to look around my sites. Often it turns out to be a robot that is obviously not going to look or buy anything from me. If not it may be that thousands of unfortunate people have had a dozen pop up windows attack them as they bravely try to fight them off. I may be generalising slightly with this, but usually the people that are directed or redirected to your website will want nothing more than to close it down.
It could possibly work for you if your site instantly captures people and most of your money is made off advertising that these people quickly click on before closing you down. However do not attempt to use bought traffic whilst using Google Adsense on your site as it is against their rules and your account might be terminated without warning. Another possible benefit is that some search engines rank sites based on incoming traffic, thus 10000 more hits by anybody may actually boost your rankings. However, this is unlikely to fool search engines such as Google or Yahoo!.
Cross Linking
Q)What is Cross Linking?
Cross linking is a webmaster practice whereby a person owns many domains, uploads an identical site to each and then heavily links each domain to the others. For example, person A registers lotsofhits,com, but is not getting enough traffic. To fool the search engines into thinking it is a popular website he registers a hundred more domains, so each will have different web addresses but all have the duplicate page content of lotsofhits,com, and all of them link to one another. This in theory should boost the pages rank, as Google, along with other search engines, determine the importance of a site based on links from outside websites pointing to it(along with a few other things). It would also mean that there are a hundred more sites on the web that sell the same product as lotsofhits, com that could all possibly be found.
Q)Will Cross Linking my site(s) be penalised by search engines?
This is not a myth - search engines often penalise or even temporarily ban sites that Cross Link. If Google detect completely duplicate content on even just two sites that link to each other, then they will at least lower your page and result rankings, if not ban both sites.
Q)I heard cross linking is fine as long as the sites do not have completely duplicate content. Is there any truth in this?
If you are determined to Cross Link the safest way would be to own two or three domains that link to each other but each of which have completely unique content and link to other sites as well as one another. It is hardly worth creating two or more unique sites for the sole purpose of cross linking and I would not recommend doing so anyway.
SEO Software
Q.Is it true that there is no point in doing any manual search engine optimisation or search/site submissions when you can buy software that will do it all for you?
There is a little truth behind this, but not much. Whilst certain software might make for an excellent tool in assisting your SEO campaign, in the end there you will find there is no substitute for hard work. For example you can download a program that will submit your site automatically to 10000 search engines or put a link to you web page on 50 other sites. The problems there being: only four major search engines exist and between them they take over 80% of all search engine traffic. Those search engines will find your site automatically and rank it according to, amongst other things, relevant and unique content - making the 10000 search engine submission promise redundant (even if it were true).
There are good tools available that will track your visitors (Google analytics), tell you how your site could be made more search engine friendly and software that even tracks how each of your keywords are ranked in major search engines. However, if you are purchasing such software, try to find a trustworthy independent review first so that you are sure you are not getting ripped off. Also try to make sure that any software you use does not go against Google’s terms of service.
So, whilst certain software can and will be useful to you, there is no replacement for hard work and unique content and regular updates. The search engine rankings should then take care of themselves.
About The Author
Nicholas C Smith is project manager at Breakfrom Limited, who specialise in affordable ecommerce solutions and general web design knowledge and advice.
For more information and advice visit http://www.breakfrom.com
Search Ranking Analysis
by: Giovanni Gallucci
Campaign Results Reporting One Measure of Your SEO Success
Campaign results’ reporting is a critical component of search engine optimization, PPC and paid inclusion programs. Generally executed at the final stages of a search engine marketing program, campaign results reporting provides an update on whether the progress of your website search engine optimization is in sync with the online marketing objectives you set for the campaign. The campaign results reports compare results against the data established prior to your search engine optimization campaign. See how you’re doing on search engine rankings, search engine traffic, referrals and competitor comparisons to help you progress towards your marketing goals. Campaign results reporting also help identify the next logical step and areas that can be improved upon based on the progress made to date.
At YELLOW7.COM, our SEO campaign results reporting delivers you measurable results. We analyze your websites log statistics and also provide you with SEO reports that document the current positions of your target phrases on major search engines. In the process, we discover what worked and improve upon what didn’t.
YELLOW7.COM provides you with monthly progress reports and search engine ranking reports so that the results of your SEO campaign are always accessible by you. While we provide these reports on a monthly basis they are also provided to our clients on request.
Web Analytics Tracks Your Target Traffic
Web analytics is all about gaining vital business intelligence in the online world. While attracting highly targeted traffic to your website is important, understanding what that traffic does once it gets on your website is equally important in ensuring a successful search engine optimized website. A critical component of any search engine optimization campaign, web analytics delivers you with an accurate and affordable means to measure your Internet marketing results as well as manage your e-business strategy.
YELLOW7.COM’s web analytics provides you with the latest information regarding your search engine optimization activity and results. We’ll help you not only track your web traffic, but understand your traffic’s conversion rates. We don’t restrict ourselves to any single web analytics system but provide you with the option of either a log file or a cookie-based system or a combination of both. YELLOW7 delivers you web analytics reports in whatever format you choose - and whenever you want them.
Web Analytics Process
YELLOW7.COM conducts an analysis of your website on various parameters such as visibility, functionality, loyalty, economy, etc. We analyze your website logs by finding where visitors are coming from and the search terms they use to arrive at your website. Download speeds, page visitors and session times are tracked to identify improvements in the visitor experience to the site. We also do an in-depth analysis by identifying recurring visitors, to see which products or services are popular with them to aid you in creating targeted offers and incentives. Our web tracking delivers clients with a veritable information repository of knowledgeable data. From tracking the key phrases that optimize results, to augmenting online sales and branding, as well as how the search engine optimization drastically reduces customer acquisition costs.
About The Author
Giovanni Gallucci
With over a decade of expertise building communities online and search engine technology, I am recognized as a social media expert, new media producer, and a leader in search engine marketing. My areas of expertise encompass community building, web design and development, website architecture, online marketing, new media, natural web site optimization, online viral marketing, and social media consulting.
http://yellow7.com
Search Engine Optimization
by: Giovanni Gallucci
Search Engine Optimization, Positioning, Promotions, and Submissions
At yellow7.com we offer a service called search engine optimization, which is a high return marketing strategy. A process of conditioning a website for top search engine ranking. The marketing objective is to create new streams of traffic that are the most valuable leads available - those referred by search engines.
More people discover websites from search engines than all other online promotion sources combined. Leads are highly qualified since they are derived by the visitor’s actual need represented by the keywords used during the search engine process. Studies prove that this approach substantially increases revenue. Best of all, the return on investment is unmatched by any other website marketing strategy.
In today’s world of website promotion, a business needs an effective Internet marketing strategy via an aggressive search engine optimization and search engine positioning campaign and a quality, optimized website that targets and matches your business goals with online customer needs.
Search engine optimization, also known as search engine placement, search engine positioning, search engine ranking or search engine marketing, can act as a 24/7 salesperson driving targeted search engine traffic to your marketing message.
Search engine optimization will help you:
* Increase traffic to your website
* Create a gap between you and your competition
* Develop fast and measurable returns on investment
* Lower the costs of client acquisition
* Broaden your market share
An aggressive search engine stategy includes a look into all aspects available including: pay per click campaign management, manual directory & search engine submissions, rank position, keyword marketing research and search engine promotion.
About The Author
Giovanni Gallucci
With over a decade of expertise building communities online and search engine technology, I am recognized as a social media expert, new media producer, and a leader in search engine marketing. My areas of expertise encompass community building, web design and development, website architecture, online marketing, new media, natural web site optimization, online viral marketing, and social media consulting.
http://yellow7.com
