Internet and Technology

Improve Search Engine Ranking – Do You Think You Can Do It All By Yourself? Improve Search Engine Ranking to Increase Website Visits

In order to improve search engine rankings of your website you will need to pay close attention to both in-page and off-page points. In this brief post, we will go over frequently disregarded points when seeking top search engine placement. Commonly, an optimization procedure consists of these steps: the optimizer brainstorms keywords that he would want to utilize for the site and does some research to find your competition\’s keywords. Then, those keywords are fused to form brief expressions (one- to five-word phrases) and investigated to find how many searches have been done recently for for each one of those expressions. So, let\’s concentrate on the first phases of this strategy and how you may begin an affordable seo to improve search engine ranking.After finding a tendency for some words or a peculiar combination that has little rivalry you may append such a combination to your web page, be it in URLs , meta tags, headers, the titles or content. Once optimized, you are ready to submit the page to search engines and directories. Obviously, only about ten sites will reach the first page of most engines. If you can improve search engine ranking to such an extent that a link to your site eventually appears in the beginning page of Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask for a special combination of words, you will consequently increase the number of visits. Virtually all users do discover through those search engines the info they were looking for. Start by selecting a keyword around which you would like to improve search engine ranking for a page. Keywords are terms you´d expect people will explore when searching for info about the category of products, services or topics related to your business organization. Now, check synonyms and associated words. Introduce those words into a search engine query box and observe who your competitors are; do not confuse your Internet contenders with the street competitors. Your Internet competitors are the web sites that the engine is ranking high and they are your central trigger to improve search engine ranking. There are, probably, some usable keywords, and there will be many keywords you better waste not your time with. For instance, if the keyword you are testing yields more than 1000 web sites you don\’t waste time. It will be excessively hard to improve search engine ranking for such a term. Visit the sites of your competition and check if you can find other interesting synonyms. Afterwards, combine your strongest options to form short expressions of around 2 to 4 words. Once again, research those combinations until you find some reasonable odds to improve search engine ranking. Combinations which returned around 200 to 700 sites will be comfortable to work with. It is now that the off-page optimization stage commences. This stage phase is the most lengthy contribution of web marketing and also the most high-priority to improve search engine ranking; it involves hyperlink-making and authority building up. But we better leave this topic for another article about how to improve search engine ranking

www.Mr-Seo.com/ImproveSearchEngineRanking.html

Top Search Engine Placement: The Next Thing On Search Engine Ratings And How It Touches Your Top Search Engine Placement

When you have a website and are genuine about exercising business in it, you have to be up to date about what is in mind for search engines and its rating factors in order to profit from them, since these directly impact on whether you attain a top search engine placement or not.A seo strategy\’s goal is to get you a top search engine placement for you to be set to effortlessly hit your main prospects and potential clients and grab their attention. This is your big moment to stimulate them to access your site and get them to become purchasing customers.This is why it is essential to understand how search engines use their rating parameters, it simply defines whether you live or die on the Internet. Today, search engines take several aspects into consideration when evaluating sites; such as content, link quality and website organization, to name a few. A seo expert can help you improve all of these in order to upgrade you to a top search engine placement, but new events might convey some surprises.Search engines are always altering their maneuvers to help their clients with finer and more exact solutions, thus, what is coming has to do with them granting firmer attention to what real users believe about a website instead of what software procedures suggest.Leading search engines like Google will begin paying more attention to sites selected as the top by usual users. These selections ensure transparency and truth, because they are not easily manipulated by seo specialists or web masters and due to this, the top search engine placement on given outcomes will likely change. It is very legitimate; by paying attention to the responses their true visitors are offering, search engines will distinctly comprehend what these customers reckon as important and interesting. Web users\’ choices will turn into the primary determinant when determining whether your website merits the top search engine placement or not. Means like videos, article statements and social media will be regularly examined, thus… be set! Ensure that you are earnestly outweighing their content right away. Amidst the significant factors search engines will consider you may name:1_The total of times your website is moved up or voted one of the first by single visitors2_The sort of lookups these visitors use to perform3_The total of votes your website has earned on social sites like Digg, LinkedIn or StumbleUpon4_Who and how many websites are naming yours5_The amount of time users are spending looking at your videos or in your website6_The intensity with which visitors return to your site7_The total of statements left on your websiteIn the face of this radical attitude, merely one aspect can ensure you hold your top search engine placement: Content. When you possess clever, up- to- date, entertaining and incomparable information, users will be happy to choose you, come back consistently and make remarks about your ideas.

www.Mr-Seo.com/top-search-engine-placement.html

This article has been prepared by Tug. Tug, is a Search Engine Marketing specialist agency, based in Shoreditch, London.

Search Engines have evolved into a new consumer, communications and marketing channel. Google, Yahoo and MSN serve 213 million searches a day.

In fact, 9 out of 10 internet surfers use a Search Engine to start their internet journey. Therefore, if your website doesn’t have visibility in the engines, you are missing significant volumes of traffic.

Natural vs. Paid for Listings

There are essentially two listings within a Search Engine Results Page (SERP): the Natural listings (on the left) and the Paid for listing (on top and on the right).

Natural listings are the results the engine believes to be the most relevant sites to your search. The natural listings consistently receive over 70% of consumer clicks. Paid for listings are the ads served by Advertisers, who have bid on the term searched for by the consumer.

The Natural listings therefore list all available websites in the World Wide Web, while the Paid for listings only serve links by relevant Advertisers willing to pay for their spot, and thus high visibility in the engines.

To increase Reach, advertisers can pay for ads on the Search Engines themselves, as well as their local listings, mobile listings and their Content Network of websites.

Pay per Click (PPC). Pay only for Visitors

Unlike other marketing channels where you pay for the number of people who see your ad, in pay per click advertising (PPC) you only pay when someone clicks on your ads and is driven through to your site.

• 75% of users search for goods and services through a Search Engine.

• PPC has the lowest cost per lead compared to other Direct Marketing methods.

• Pay per click advertising is relevant to what the individual is searching for – targeting them at the right moment and mood.

• Pay per click is 100% accountable.

• Advertisers can know the cost of each conversion in real-time, and campaigns can be instantly optimised for maximum ROI.

To get visibility in the paid for listings you can set up a PPC campaign for your website yourself, or by commissioning a specialist Search Engine Marketing agency like Tug.

To get visibility in the Natural listings you need to optimise your website – this is called Search Engine Optimisation. Again this is where you need to commission a specialist agency like Tug.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine Optimisation, or SEO as it’s commonly known as, is an online marketing strategy that involves designing, writing and coding your entire website with the intention of enabling search engines to index your site easily and efficiently. The sole aim and objective is for it to rank higher for keywords relevant to your business. Optimising a website is critical to gaining visibility on the organic or natural (left hand side) search results (SERP’s) of search engines.

SEO, is done in two stages, known primarily as on page and off page. On page involves the website itself and fundamentally evolves around the design, build and copy laid out within the actual site. Off page relates to ongoing SEO development and includes link building campaigns, news and article submissions, paid directory submissions and joining discussion forums that relate to your chosen industry. The latter is basically about gaining 3rd party exposure of your website.

On Page Factors

• Keyword mining

• Keyword density checks

• Credible copywriting

• Meta tags scripting

• Clean and valid mark-up (HTML)

• Link management

Off Page Factors

• Free / paid directory submission

• Article and news submission

• Press release distribution

• Reciprocal link marketing

• Inbound link building

• Digital signatures

Using Search Engine Marketing to meet your Communication Objectives

Consumers using a Search Engine are primarily in two sets of mind: ‘Research’ mode and ‘Ready to act/buy/sign up’ mode. From a marketer’s point of view they are at different stages of the Purchase Cycle.

PPC campaigns should be set up with this in mind. Different campaigns can be geared for different objectives – for example one for Awareness and one for Sales. The Awareness campaign should be optimized for Reach, concentrating on the highest number of clicks at the cheapest possible price. The Sales campaign conversely should be optimized for sales volume and cheapest Cost per Acquisition (CPA).

Search Engine Optimisation will primarily meet your Awareness and Traffic objectives, as the campaign usually concentrates on fewer, broader keyterms. But keep in mind that this broader Search might ultimately lead to a sale as the Searcher moves through the Purchase Cycle. Remember to optimize your Meta Descriptions (the description in the SERP) with the consumer in mind.

Search Engine Marketing Case Studies:

Search Engine Optimisation Case Study: UK Business Properties. http://ukbusinessproperties.com

Problem

• UK Business Properties launched a new Commercial Property directory in 2006

• While the agency that built the site assured them it was SEO friendly, they were languishing on page 3 on Google for the most important keyword: ‘Commercial Property’

Solution

• Tug developed an SEO strategy that emphasised the keyword ‘Commercial Property’

• Review and editing of website content – addition of content pages for all UK regions

• Review and editing of Meta

• Review and editing of code to make more spider friendly

• Directory and site map submission

• A bespoke link building campaign where we submitted to directories, article websites and actively exchange links with high PageRank sites in parallel business verticals

Results

• Within 6 weeks the website was listed #3 on Page 1 of Google.co.uk

• The keyword ‘Commercial Property’ now drives 65% of traffic to the site

• They are now #1 on Google and we are now optimising and link building for new relevant keywords

Pay per Click Case Study: Truffle Shuffle http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk

Problem

• Truffle Shuffle is an online retailer competing in a tight margin business, against small t-shirt retailers and huge online retailers like ASOS.

Solution

• PPC campaign on Google and Yahoo.

• Avoid Broad keywords even if they can drive sales volume.

• Use only very specific product related keywords.

• Use bid management software to set strict Position and ROI rules.

• Develop specific, relevant ad Creative for every available t-shirt.

• Weekly coordination with PR efforts.

• Concentrate only on keywords that convert under £5.25.

• Measure revenue and work with exact margins to measure profit on every keyword weekly.

Results

• In November 07, Tug drove 1,949 sales (1 or more t-shirts) at an average cost per conversion of £1.39.

• We delivered a 24:1 ROI (revenue generated/ad spend).

Search Engine Placement Marketing: A Substantial Articles\’ Platform Is Fundamental For Search Engine Placement Marketing

Your site\’s value is strongly connected to the strength of the information you offer. As you develop a search engine placement marketing platform, certainly view the information on your site as the main factor to become popular and rich on the web. Users search for enlightening and amusing blogs, products or services with strong pluses, worthy guarantee and small risk, interactive and educational information that fills their needs. Search engine placement marketing is mainly about maintaining uninterrupted and growing visitors within your pages and solid information is the best way to assure users will come to you over and over, grow loyal and enrich your company. If clients treasure your information they will praise it among friends, gifting you with the top kind of advertising there is: constructive word of mouth.An efficient search engine placement marketing platform has to be founded on appealing information, it has to appeal to your visitors and give them precisely what they are in search for, otherwise, they will leave. Generally, users like small pieces that are simple to scan and go directly to the issue, nevertheless, if the surfer is looking for a solution, the information should be extensive enough to clarify every point.Actually, the most efficient strategy when deciding the length of the information to provide, is to go with both, brief and extended articles, to fulfill everybody\’s demands. Write interesting and clear concise articles for the majority and detailed and broad versions of these for visitors who want to go deeper. Recall that as crucial as pulling in visitors is for every search engine placement marketing platform, it is more crucial to keep them within your pages for as long as possible; rich information, whether concise or detailed, is the way to attain it. The size of your information really depends on what your site\’s objective is. Consider your search engine placement marketing platform and, if its objective is to get money through ads, which refers to a lot of visitors, provide briefer articles and update them regularly. You may be sacrificing worth here, but no problem, as your goal is to pull in lots of visitors to click on a link. Nevertheless, if your objective is to present yourself as an expert on the field, you must demonstrate your expertise and skills, and for this, you have to develop detailed, different and valuable articles deserving of placing you above the competitors and giving you positive notoriety. You have to relate to other recognized discipline members to transmit the concept that you are concerned about everybody\’s wellbeing, not solely yours, and that you regard and recognize who is as versed as you. Ensure your information excels others, write it in an unique style by exploring different viewpoints and transmitting a message of their own. A useful idea is to see what the tendencies are and do something different.

In truth, when your clients are loyal to you, it is a minor thing if information is concise or detailed, they are there because they are engaged and amused. If you want to watch your site develop quickly and solidly, pay attention to what you offer and make sure it invokes your visitors and strengthens your image.

 

http://www.Mr-Seo.comhttp://www.Mr-Seo.com

Most of the time webmasters focus on optimizing their website for Google & Yahoo search engine and ignores the third most important search engine. MSN is the third important search engine amongst the major search engines. In order to be successful on the web, you should focus on MSN as well.Generally, for all search engines SEO guidelines are same although, during the creation of the search engine the majority of the principles of optimization that were used won’t surprise professional participants in the on-line market, it is necessary to note several invisible at first glance differences in the optimization requirements for MSNBot, because of which the search engine can possibly be considered unique in its kind.You can increase the website visibility using various techniques but Microsoft has gone on the record to stress the importance of a well designed, optimized website. The software giant even went on to say that you may want to consider hiring a reputable SEO firm to boost your chances of being properly indexed by the MSN search engine. This makes perfect sense as the MSNBot, Microsoft’s aptly named search engine spider, is attracted to web pages that are easy to read and navigate.Hiring SEO services is not always possible for everyone, so we have provided some important tips for optimizing and creating your websites impression on MSN search engine.* Along with Google and Yahoo focus properly on your incoming links anchor text, so that MSN indexes more web pages of your site than other search engines to get higher ranking pages quickly in MSN search engine.* As per the Microsoft guidelines for site owners, it is essential for MSN that you use well-formed HTML code and ensure that your site doesn’t contain any broken links.* Create a robots.txt file to control how MSNBot indexes your site; using a robots.txt file is important for other crawlers, too.* Put descriptive content near the top of each web page and make sure each web page has a clear topic and purpose.* Don’t forget to add your website description into a Meta Description Tag. If you change your content, update your website description immediately.* Contents are king for MSN; limit all pages and pictures to a maximum size of 150KB. Adding a sitemap enables MSNBot to find all of your pages easily.* Don’t use the irrelevant words on your loading web pages to increase a page’s keyword density and avoid using hidden text or links, MSN might consider it as a spam and may remove you from their index.* MSN is a very content and keyword sensitive search engine and if you focus more on to your keywords and content, in return you may get good search engine rankings by MSN Search.On-page optimization is very much important for Google and Yahoo search engines, but increasing your website visibility in MSN search engine can help you attract good amount of targeted traffic and your ranking will improve in other search engines as well.

I recently caught wind of a rather controversial video for msn keywords ranking it’s about cutting edge msn search engine traffic strategies called MSN SEO Loophole – created by a guy named Dave Kelly.  As far as I know, Major of internet marketer today are targeting Google, Yahoo traffic rather than MSN search engine. The fact is – it’s getting harder and harder for the “little guy” to get any kind of meaningful web presence on the web these days on these top2 search engines.  You may found that sometime we got 50 sites built, and we’ve got only 2 of them with some pages ranking on the front page of Google, yahoo search engine for a decent keyword. Although, we can get some traffic from the search engine, make a few sales here and there, but then our pages disappear from search engine due new competitor coming in using the same keyword and lots of them very soon.  No much people is actually targeting MSN keywords, but one thing should not be ignore is that there are also millions upon millions of people who use MSN search engine daily – one thing that several marketers will tell you (including ourselves) is that MSN search engine traffic converts far better than Google traffic. It’s a different demographic altogether.  Some people are said that they target msn keywords and built 50 sites and 45 of them are able to ranking in the top 3 positions in MSN search engine, day in, day out for ultra competitive msn keywords.  Dave Kelly are even more smart guys literally figured out how to get #1 rank for practically ANY keyword phrase they want in MSN search engine. and yet, get it FAST within few days. It plainly shows some truly unreal organic rankings that he’s been achieving (by the hundreds) with, well – what seems like an actual msn search engine “hack”… Its not about 5 word, long tail, msn keyword phrases either. they’re talking about major keywords….like ’search engine’, in markets with like…25,000,000 competing pages! and It’s real white hat money sites…that in most cases will rank for a long time.  I have no idea how these guys accomplished this msn keywords… All I know is I wanna get me some of msn search engine traffic too!  After you’ve checked out the video, let me know your thoughts. This could have a major impact for all of us…

Optimizing your blog for the search engines is crucial and very important! There are so many different blogs out there on the net that you’ll quickly sink to the bottom if you don’t optimize. Follow these seven tips below and you’ll be well on your way to high rankings.

#1 – Create the Right Permalink Structure

The permalinks Wordpress uses by default are not search engine friendly. You can make this simple change by inserting %postname% instead of the default that is already there. This will successfully create URL’s that include your post name which should include your targeted keywords.

#2 – Install All in One SEO Plugin

This is a must-have plugin which allows you to specify a title, description, and the keywords for the search engines. It can really help you boost up and reach the top of the listings, whereas the standard WP installation can fall short.

#3 – Install Related Posts Plugin

Search engines love it when they get content pages that are interlinked. It also works very well for the search engines. It will automatically include links to other posts that are similar. Very convenient!

#4 – Research your Keywords

When people search, they search by keyword. It is vital that you know what these keywords are if you want to rank at the top of the search engines. Your posts should be centered around these keywords.

#5 – Include Your Keywords in the Title

In the title of your blog you need to include your main keyword. Also, include your main keyword and select others in the titles of your posts and sprinkle throughout your pages.

#6 – Make Your Blog Easy to Navigate

Easy navigation is essential for your guests and the search engines as it makes it easier for the guests. That means including your blog’s categories, recent posts (to make sure they get indexed) and pages. Easy navigation is also part of choosing a good design.

#7 – Expand the Ping List

When you make a new blog post Wordpress will “ping” the blog search engines. This alerts them that content on your site has changed and ready for guests to view. This can help you get indexed fast so you can start making money even faster. Do a Google search to find an expanded ping list you can include in your wp-admin so you make sure you get as many of these sites to update you as possible.

Using these seven plugins will make your job of ranking highly in the search engines easier than ever. If you’re new to blogging with Wordpress then these terms may seem incredibly strange to you right now. As you study them and go over them a couple times, put them into action and it will start to feel like second nature!

Of all the areas of Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization is the most misunderstood, and potentially the most important to your marketing efforts. There are millions upon millions of pages of web content out there — you can work hard, build a great site, and then be totally lost in the shuffle. SEO is important. It’s also a very complex process that requires patience, careful planning and a long-term approach.If you’re just getting started with:

Selecting an SEO firm

Trying to start a search engine campaign on your own

Reviewing your current SEO efforts

…read on. This article should provide you with a high-level review of the SEO process, dispel a few SEO myths, and help you understand legitimate optimization strategies.What is Search Engine Optimization?Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, defies easy definition. But here’s a short version:

Search Engine OptimizationUsing keyword analysis and other legitimate practices to gain the highest possible search engine and directory rankings, under a given key phrase, for a given URL.

Every SEO professional in the world just cringed, so I’ll break this definition down a bit and hopefully prevent a hail of angry e-mails:Keyword Analysis is the process of mining keyword search data to find the best balance between the keywords you need and the best potential search niche. More on this later.Search Engine means an automated search engine. ‘Search Engines’ include Google, AlltheWeb.com, Yahoo (powered by Google plus their own directory information), AOL Search, Ask Jeeves and MSN Search. A search engine obtains its results from ’spiders’ or ‘bots’ — small programs that come to your web site read it in much the same way you would: By reading the content on a page, and then moving from page to page via links. A directory, on the other hand, is built at least in part by human beings reading sites and other information and deciding where each site fits into the directory structure. Yahoo’s directory area and Open Directory are both examples of directories. Ranking is the numeric rank reflecting your position in the results list when someone performs a search on a particular set of keywords.Highest Possible means getting as close to number one as you can. Sometimes you just can’t get that number one spot. Maybe someone else has a 400-page web site solely dedicated to the key phrase for which you’re attempting to optimize. Or maybe they’re paying a fortune in advertising. That’s life, sometimes…

Key Phrase is the keyword or set of keywords someone types into the little ’search’ field in Google or Alta Vista or any other search engine. A URL is the address of one page on your site. Most search engines display keyword search results and provide a link directly to the page most relevant to those results, rather than your home page. It’s very, very important to keep that in mind when you build and optimize your site.Legitimate Practices is a pet peeve of mine. A true search engine optimization campaign will not use practices such as page or content cloaking, redirects, or lists of links (so-called ‘link farms’) but relies on good coding practices, well-written content, steady link popularity work and site features that will be every bit as valuable for site visitors as for search engine ranking. Anything less is a short-term fix that will likely reduce your rankings more often than increase them.So, the long version of the definition would be:

Search Engine OptimizationUsing keyword analysis, good coding practices, well-written copy, link popularity analysis and careful site organization to move a web page as close to the number one search results position as possible for a given key phrase, in both search engines and directories.

Hey, that’s not so bad after all. But how do you get started? First, you separate reality from myth…SEO Urban LegendsThere are quite a few SEO myths out there. Here are my favorites:The Keywords META Tag Matters. Mostly wrong. Only Inktomi pays any attention to the keywords meta tag. You should do something basic, but don’t bother putting in keywords that aren’t supported by your page content.Search Engines can read Flash, images and video. Sorry, and Ford isn’t selling a flying car yet, either. Search engines can read one thing: Text. Anything else, while perfectly legitimate as a design tool, will not help your ranking. And relying too heavily on Flash or images may reduce your site’s visibility. Google is one partial exception — they can read some links in Flash, but still have very limited ability to read Flash content.Mirroring my site in multiple locations will improve ranking. Actually, just the opposite. Duplication of content will generally have no effect or, worse, reduce your ranking in major search engines. Most search engines now have rules against this form of ’spam’ and may reduce your ranking or ban your site altogether.’Doorway’ pages improve ranking. Pages that have lots of keywords but then quickly redirect to the main site will not help you in major search engines, such as Google. And, if someone catches you and reports you to Google or the other search engine, you may be banned altogether. A ‘landing’ or ‘bridge’ page, though, that’s designed to be as useful for users as for search engines, and does not redirect the user, can help by providing keyword-rich content that’s genuinely worthwhile.

Firms promising to get me #1 rankings in 10,000 search engines for $99.95 can help. I alternate between tooth-grinding and hysterical laughter when I see these ads. First, there aren’t 10,000 search engines. Actually, there are probably 10-20 you should really worry about. Getting listed in the other thousand or so is largely a waste of time. Second, no one can guarantee any ranking in any search engine for a specific keyword. Period. And finally, the price is less than half the cost to get an express submission in a single directory (Yahoo). Chances are anyone trying to get you to spend the $99.95 is operating a ‘link farm’ where they list dozens, or hundreds, of sites. While they won’t hurt your ranking, they won’t help, either. To learn more about how to choose an SEO firm, check out Google’s article: http://www.google.com/intl/mr/webmasters/seo.html.Firms charging me more money and guaranteeing a #1 ranking on Google can help. This is the latest SEO scam. I can get you a number one ranking on Google, too, as long as I get to pick the keyword or can get you ranked under a fairly unique company name. But no one, and I mean no one can guarantee a #1 rank under a specific keyword. Even Google says so.Forget the myths — if an offer seems too good to be true, it is. The truth is that search engines are now almost savvy enough to read your pages like a human being would, so anything that will drive away a typical site visitor will also probably reduce your ranking. Things that will increase your search engine ranking include:

Well-written content

Good, clean HTML code

Useful, relevant TITLE tags

Useful, relevant DESCRIPTION tags

Relevant, appropriate links from other web sites

There are some basic steps that, well executed, will do more to increase your page rank than an ocean of snake oil.The SEO Campaign ProcessA typical SEO campaign starts with keyword analysis, and then emphasizes insuring your site doesn’t impede search engine bots and follows up with ongoing link and traffic analysis. If you like pretty pictures, here’s one:

 What’s a Bot?A ‘bot’ is a program used by a search engine to read the content of your site into a directory. I mentioned this briefly in ‘What is Search Engine Optimization?’ above. Keep up, now….

Step 1: Keyword Analysis. Ah, keywords. If you say the right word enough times on your site, you’ll get that coveted #1 spot, right? Wrong. Choosing the right keywords starts with you making a list of the keywords or phrases under which you’d like to be found, and typically ends up somewhere completely different. Typically, selecting the best keywords is a four-step process:

List the keywords and phrases under which you’d like to be found.

Find out whether anyone searches on those keywords, and whether they’re searching for relevant items.

Find out how many other sites are struggling for rankings under those keywords.

Pick keywords with the same meaning but a better search-to-competition ratio.

Maybe I want to rank #1 under ‘Search Engine Optimization’. Guess what? There are 686,000 other URLs in Google trying for that spot. Hmmm. But wait! Under ‘Seattle Search Engine Optimization’ there are only 19,000. So, I targeted that key phrase, instead. And guess what? We got a #3 ranking.Don’t forget about relevance, either. If you want a high ranking under ‘tires’, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. And in the end you’ll likely end up getting found for ‘bicycle tires’, ‘automobile tires’, ’spare tires’ and who knows what else. Is it worth it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But you have to do your homework to find out.

Data Mining and KeywordsIf you’re doing a campaign for a large site, you may end up testing and comparing thousands of keywords and phrases. Having a good data-mining tool (even Excel will do) on hand is important when you’re doing keyword analysis. We use S-Plus, by Insightful Software. It’s saved our lives, and clicker fingers, several times.

There are several tools that help you research the number of searches and competitors for keywords. Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) is a good one — don’t depend on their results from Overture, though, unless you’re specifically preparing an Overture campaign. Metacrawler’s MetaSpy tool is worth a look, too. Ideally, look at results from a few different sources.Keyword analysis is the hardest part of a campaign, in number-crunching terms. It requires a lot of work and may not tell you what you want to hear. But in my experience it’s critical to a successful campaign.Step 2: Search Engine Readiness. Almost every web site we review has one or more problems that will prevent search engine bots from properly reading all content. Typical showstoppers include:

An all-Flash or all-images home page

A home page that automatically redirects to another page

Pop-up ads (does anyone really read these things?)

A site full of pages with fewer than 400 words on a page

Broken links

Navigation that is generated by JavaScript

No TITLE or DESCRIPTION tags

A major step in any SEO campaign is making sure that the site will present the friendliest profile to search engines. Happily, the investment in optimizing will also pay off in a faster, more universally compatible site.

Step 3. Content and Site Preparation. You’ve done your research: You know which keywords match your message, and your site’s HTML code is one big search engine welcome mat. Now it’s time to make sure that your site contains those keywords. This is where I most often see folks get confused — should you rewrite your web content to emphasize keywords? Yes, but with extreme caution. Should you make small, appropriate changes? Yes. Here are my guidelines for content preparation.

Don’t write for keywords (much). This almost always leads to stilted, hard-to-read prose. Writing keyword-rich content that really works for users is an art form. Be careful.

Do a little careful editing. If you use the word ‘car’ but ‘auto’ is the keyword you need, chances are you can do a few replacements without marring your carefully crafted copy.

Spend time on the titles and description tags. Make sure every page in your site has a unique, relevant TITLE and DESCRIPTION tag.

Never use an automatic page generator. Tools like WebPosition Gold offer to generate optimized pages for you. Don’t. They tend to hurt your ranking as much as help, and they generate ugly, ugly pages.

Write more stuff. More content is almost always better. If your site is just missing a specific keyword or phrase, but you think it’s important, then your potential customers probably do too. By adding a few more pages, or a white paper, or some other content focusing on those absent keywords, you’ll likely help visitors and improve your keyword ranking at the same time. And, the more text-rich your site is, the better the odds that you’ll catch longer, stranger but really important key phrases that you can’t anticipate.

Step 4. Link Analysis. Quite a few major search engines (Google, most importantly) weigh your ‘link popularity’ when ranking your site. A more accurate term, though, is ‘link analysis’, because these engines don’t just count up the number of links to your site. They look for links near and containing relevant text. So a page full of links, one of which happens to be yours, won’t help very much. But a link from a related site, near a short paragraph that contains relevant keywords, will probably give you a boost. Having keywords in the link itself is even better. A quick example:

http://www.portentinteractive.com doesn’t help much.For search engine optimization, visit http://www.portentinteractive.com is much better.For search engine optimization, visit Portent Interactive where ’search engine optimization’ is the link to Portent, is the absolute best case.

There are a few ways to build your link popularity:

Contact sites that relate to yours and request a link exchange. This works really well, but obviously takes a long time.

Syndicate your content. If you can provide an easy way for interested webmasters to link directly to relevant stories on your site, you provide an instant link popularity boost, and get your message out to boot.

Start an affiliate program. If you sell a product, consider setting up an affiliate sales program.

Google’s ‘One Site, One Vote’ RuleGoogle awards a lot less weight to a link to your site if that link is on a page with lots of other links. That’s why so-called ‘link farming’ doesn’t work. Ideally, you want a link to your site from a page that includes relevant content and not that many other outgoing links.Step 5. Submit your site. Many search engines, Google included, allow you to submit your site for free. Generally you can submit your home page and let the search engine crawl the rest of your site. Some directories and engines offer paid ‘express’ services, and some, like Teoma, require that you pay for URL submission. Which engines you choose depends on your budget and campaign.Step 6. Review, Revise, and Keep Going. Think you’re done? Wrong — search engine optimization is an ongoing project. At least once per month, review your rankings, site traffic reports and link popularity and tweak your site as necessary. The tools you need to measure results are:

Site traffic reports. Any web hosting company should provide you with a web site traffic report, and almost all of the reporting tools in use today provide a ‘referrals from search engines’ section. Take a look at this section for a good measure of campaign results.

Link counts. Use the link: command on Google (see above) to determine your link popularity.

Your keyword list. Search on the relevant search engines to see if your ranking has improved.

Your brain. You have to interpret what you see, and decide whether changes are warranted. There’s no hard and fast rule for this, and no magic formula. Sorry about that…

So now you’ll get instant results, right? Well, not quite…A Word About ExpectationsSearch engine optimization can take time. Even Google only refreshes its entire index once a month, so don’t expect instant results.If your first registration run doesn’t generate increased rankings within a month or two, don’t panic. Look at your site traffic and search on the keywords you chose. Make sure that the search engine you’re checking actually includes your site, too — most likely the bots just haven’t gotten around to ‘crawling’ your site.Still stumped? Find a professional. Sure, we cost money. But you may have missed something about your site that’s preventing a good keyword rank, and a second set of eyes can help. A Solid Marketing StrategyObviously, Search Engine Optimization is a big job. But nothing can send more traffic to your site, for lower per-click cost. If you follow the basic steps, and keep at it, you will definitely get results. What’s really, really important is to make sure you don’t award too much weight to one step (such as link popularity) at the expense of the others. A well-rounded campaign will provide solid, long-term results.

What about pay per click?Pay-per-click services, such as Overture and Google Adwords, are very different animals. If you’ve done your keyword analysis you’re halfway there, but there are other tasks. I’ve not talked about them in this article because, well, they need an article of their own. Check back soon…

Search Engine Optimization Demystified

In the second part of the series Search Engine Optimization Demystified – Part Two, we looked at how the search engines see your web site. We went through ranking, indexing and the rules to follow to get the best results for excellent natural search engine results.

In this, the third article in this series I will explain how search engines can be prevented from ever getting to your site and how they can be restricted from parts of your web site through bad web development practices. This results in poor search engine ranking and low natural search traffic levels.

We added this Meta tag to the code of his site: It does what it looks like it does; it instructs the search engine \”robots\” not to index this page or follow the links from it.

Now before you get paranoid – I have never seen this done maliciously, but if you have a robots meta tag on your site it should say: Since search engines assume this to be the default setting, it is not really necessary to have this tag on your site.

There are also meta tags that can tell the search engines what kind of content to expect on this web site. This may reduce traffic intentionally, for instance: < META NAME =\"AUDIENCE\" CONTENT=\"ADULT\">This tag is used by search engines to filter search results for people who set their search preferences to exclude explicit content.

You can see the META tags that have been used on your web site by looking at the source code of the site through your browser. For example, with Internet Explorer choose \”Source\” from the \”View\” menu. The meta tags will be in the top part of the file between the tags – if you hit the tag you\’ve gone too far.

The first page of the site is the most heavily weighted page by search engines. Weighting is done according to various factors, including the amount of relevant text on the page. Since the first page of a frame set is just a set of code instructions to the browser on how to find and use the files for the next page, what a frame set does is to \”demote\” all of the pages in a site to one level down in the page hierarchy. Search engines use the page hierarchy to determine the importance of the page within your web site. If your first page has no content on it, it will rank poorly, and if all other pages are secondary to the first page they will be ranked even lower.

A typical frame set page looks something like this in the code view:                   As you can see there is absolutely nothing in the way of actual words in the page that may be indexed by the search engines. You can understand now why utilizing a frame set would depress your search engine rankings.

In addition, search engines like to follow a nice set of hierarchical links in order to index the content of the site. While your menu with all of your links may be contained in frame1.html in the code view above, you are making the search engine go that extra step to find that menu. As we already mentioned, this is effectively how the frame set knocks everything down one level and makes the search engine jump through an extra hoop to get to your content. Search engines expect us as site owners to jump through extra hoops to appease them – they don\’t like it at all when the tables are turned and will rank your site accordingly.

Search engines cannot read images or text written on images. They cannot read text inside of Flash movies or understand voiceover commentary from a video. Pdfs are often encoded as jpeg images and cannot be read by search engines when saved in this format. Search engines can only read text contained in HTML and in meta tags (which are specifically written for search engines).

One common misuse of Flash is the \”Splash\” or \”Landing\” page. This is a page that is just a picture or movie with only an \”Enter Here\” link on it. Since search engines cannot read the content of an image or Flash movie, this page looks blank to them. If the \”Enter Here\” link is also coded inside the Flash movie the search engines cannot see the link and will not be able to get to any of the pages inside your site regardless of whether they employ Flash or HTML.

Some web sites are written entirely in Flash and are not accessible to search engines as is. There are a few ways around the Flash barrier, like creating an HTML version of the site with meta tags and using additional navigation links in HTML. But why place a barrier to search engines on your site in the first place? We recommend using Flash for decorative purposes. We recommend that it only be used in such a way that if it were removed, search engines would still have everything necessary to index the site correctly.

To test your site\’s accessibility to search engines check if you can copy and paste the text from the web browser to your text editor. If the text is written in HTML you will be able to do this. If you can\’t, it is likely that search engines will not be able to read this text. A site done entirely in Flash or with images is usually the result of a company web development effort driven primarily by graphic design personnel with little or no input from web development professionals. If you are developing a website for business rather than for a movie, an event, or an art exhibit, you are better off listening to the advice of web development professionals who are trained in SEO concepts for maximum ROI through better search engine placement.

Search engines cannot read text embedded in JavaScript or any other scripting language that requires the user to do something (like choose from a drop down list of options) to get to new content. Therefore, most of the drop-down type navigation bars you see at the top of web sites are actually barriers to search engines. Unless a search engine spider sees an actual coded link you will lose them. This is actually the most common barrier we will see on a website because inexperienced web design personnel are unaware of the fact that search engines cannot read scripted menus.

As an aside, javascript drop down menus are usually also less human user-friendly due to the fact that they difficult to manually operate, and they provide no navigational reference point since the drop down \’snaps back up\’ disappearing as soon as it is clicked. While there are again various methods to \”get around\” this obstacle, these are stop-gap measures that can and should be avoided.

By Candace Carter, Back2Front – The Web Site People. December 2009

www.back2front.ca

One of the biggest reasons why many organizations are not doing even simple things to help people find their websites in search engines is they simply don’t understand how search engines work. This article is intended to explain the basics of how search engines work and in the course of doing so shatter some search engine myths and help you understand what you can do to help people find your website in search engines.What is a search engine?The first to step to understanding how search engines work is to understand what a search engine is. The simplest explanation is that search engine is a tool for finding things online. There are many different types of search engines but they can be put into two major categories…Human-Powered DirectoriesThe first “search engines” were not actually search engines as we think of them today, but searchable directories of websites organized by hierarchical categories. A site is added to a directory when the website owner fills out a submission form on the directory’s website requesting their site be included in the directory and include their website’s title, description, URL (web address), and category. A moderator later reviews the site and if it meets the directory’s criteria a listing for that site is added or activated. The original Yahoo was originally a human-powered directory, and directories like Open Directory Project continue on today. The downside of the human-powered search engine is that it only includes websites that have been submitted to it, which means you may not find what you’re looking for especially if it’s a new web page. The other downside from the directories’ point of view is that reviewing every site submitted is very labor-intensive and costly. I know because my company’s “search engine”, OurChurch.Com’s Directory of Christian Websites, like almost all church/Christian “search engines”, is a human-powered directory.Crawler/Spider-Powered Search EnginesThe next generation of search engines has programs which actively seek out new sites and read them into their indexes. These programs are called crawlers, spiders, robots, or bots. All of largest and most popular search engines today are of this type, including Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.The rest of this article is focused on how these crawler/spider-powered search engines work because more than 99% of searches are done on this type of search engine.The CrawlerAs mentioned above, the first part of a search engine is the crawler (AKA spider, robot, and bot). The crawler reads pages into the search engine raw database of every page the search engine crawler has read. Some important things to know about crawlers…1) Search bots periodically reread every web page in their database. Why does this matter?• You don’t have to do anything when you change your site. If your site is already listed in a search engine and you make changes to your website, search engines will eventually update their information. • You do have to be patient. The frequency of re-crawling varies depending on the search engine, the importance of your site (as determined by the search engines), and how often you update it. It could take a day or it could take more than a week. 2) Search bots follow links on the pages that have already been crawled in order to find new pages. Why does this matter?• If you add a new page to your website or create a new website, it’s important to add a link to it on a web page that is already in the search engines. • If a web page that is already in the search engines has a link to your new page or new website, you do not need to submit a request to the search engines to crawl the new page or website, though it may still be worth doing just to be sure your website will be found quickly.3) Some search engines have forms you can submit to request a website be crawled. Why does this matter?• If you have a new website and no sites link to it, search bots will not be able to find it. In this case, submitting a form to the search engine requesting your site be listed or indexed can get it into search engines. • Because human-powered directories do not have search bots/crawlers, to be listed in them you must submit a request form. The Ranking AlgorithmSome time after a web page has been crawled by the search bot or crawler, the search engine then processes or indexes the page to determine what search words and phrases the page is relevant to as well as how relevant that page is compared with other web pages for those phrases. During this processing the search engine looks at many different factors including how many times each word and phrase occurs on the page, which words are in headings or bold, the domain name of the site, filename of the page, the pages that link to the page, and many more.Exactly which factors a search engine looks at and how they’re weighted is called the search engine’s search ranking algorithm. It’s like the search engine’s “secret sauce.” Each search engine’s algorithm is different and each is a heavily guarded secret.Why does this matter?• There is time between when your site is crawled (or recrawled) and when it is processed or indexed. So, it can take as little as a few hours to many days or weeks before changes to your website may produce changes in its search rankings. • Because each search engine’s ranking algorithm is different, a web page can be #1 in Google but #20 in Yahoo for a particular phrase. • Because each search algorithm is a heavily guarded secret nobody outside of a few select engineers at each search engine knows exactly how much each particular factor weighs into the rankings of each search engine. But, people who spend their professional lives helping sites rank better in search engines have gained very good idea as to what factors matter most. • Because the search ranking algorithms look at text, headings, and other elements on a web page, changing things on the web page can change where that web page appears in the search results. • Search ranking algorithms look at factors outside of a web page, such as the age of a website and links to the web page. So, there are other factors which you may have less influence over. The goal of every search engine is to display to the user the information or websites the user is looking for. In other words every search engine wants to provide the best, most relevant results. As a result, search engines are constantly improving their algorithms and including new factors which they think will produce better search results. Why does this matter? As search algorithms change, so will your website’s search engine rankings.The Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)The crawling of websites and indexing of web pages are constantly going on even when no one is searching. The last part in the search process is part that you’re probably most familiar with – the actual search. You type in a word, short phrase, or question, and the search engine displays a list of websites.That list of websites is called the search engine results page and sometimes referred to as the SERPs.If you do a search and look at the SERP, you’ll notice two columns. Above the right column it says “Sponsored Links.” These are paid advertisements. The companies and organizations listed here pay a fee to Google for each person who clicks their ad, so they’re often referred to as Pay-Per-Click or PPC ads.In the left column are the unpaid search results also sometimes called the organic results or natural results. These are the websites the search engine believes are most relevant to the search phrase that was queried. Sometimes search engines also display sponsored links in the left column above the natural results or will even place a block of pay-per-click ads in the middle of the natural results. Sponsored links are always labeled, though not always very clearly.Why does this matter?From the searcher’s perspective, there is nothing wrong with clicking on a paid link. You may find what you’re looking for there. But it’s important to be aware of which websites paid to be in the results and which are there naturally.From the web administrator’s perspective, it’s important to understand there are two opportunities to get to the top of the search engine rankings, through natural results and by purchasing pay-per-click advertising.Help the Search EnginesWith a better understanding how search engines work, you can make better decisions about the marketing of your website though search engines. Search engines need your help to find your website and to know what words and phrases it’s relevant for. Give them the help they need. That’s where search engine optimization comes in, but I’ll get to that on another day.