If you have been unsuccessfully trying to get listed in Google or just hitting roadblocks when trying to get more of your pages listed in Google, then you need to read this short article. I am about to reveal a simple SEO secret that can save you a lot of time, money and effort without the need to be an seo expert.
Google has a preferred search submission format that it actually asks webmasters to use, It’s called a Google SiteMap.
Admittedly, creating and using XML is no easy task for anyone who is non-technical or inexperienced with web coding, however there is a site or two on the web that can actually help you create an XML sitemap and then submit it to Google so that this venerable search engine can crawl your previously unknown web site and get you listed.
Of course there are no guarantees that your site will get high ranks or that it will meet Google’s guidelines for inclusion, so be sure to make sure that your site is properly optimized and meets their guidelines before using these tools.
Before I reveal these tools and show you where to go to find out how to use them, let’s take a look at the basics.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a special document formatted created to allow communication between applications and also between organizations. XML is a practical system that structurally defines the format and composition of intricate documents and data such as invoices, news feeds, inventory reports, catalog listings and other complex documents. A seasoned programmer who understands XML can easily create XML applications that know how to pull data from XML sources and then format it for presentation to end users.
In the case of Google, this same XML data format can be used to define your site’s pages and their position in relation to each other. So for example, your “about_us.html” page is usually connected only one click away from your “index.html” page. When used in this manner to define pages and their positions we are creating what is commonly known as a sitemap.
Google says in their own words, “Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. It’s a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes to these pages.”
So in essence, Google is asking us to help them index the web by using this simple technique that will no doubt become a major help to struggling webmasters everywhere.
Google, by the way, will accept simple text file based sitemaps. Please consult their site for more information.
How to get your sitemap indexed.
Once your sitemap has been created and uploaded to the main directory of your web site, simply use this URL to submit it:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url
Just replace the parameter, “sitemap_url” with the actual URL of your sitemap. Example:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.mywebsiteabc.com/
sitemap.xml
You can also open a Google account before submitting to make sure that you can actually track your submission to check your sitemap status.
https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
I promised to reveal the tools used to facilitate the creation of XML sitemaps and here they are…
The SEO Tools Revealed:
SiteMapspal:
Use this Google recommended online tool to generate a Google friendly xml sitemap that you can simple cut/paste and then upload to your site. Simply provide your site URL and select a few optional settings and with one-click ease you will have a sitemap, ready to go.
http://www.sitemapspal.com/
Google SiteMap Generator:
Provided by Google themselves, this is not for the faint of heart, it requires some knowledge of working with Python scripts (a web coding format) and will require installation on your site.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html
SiteMap Validator:
Use this Google recommended tool to validate your sitemap for accuracy.
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/submit-validate-sitemap/
About the author:
Certified Guerilla Marketing Coach and speaker, Richard Bailey is an Internet Marketing consultant who develops methods and technology to attract customers. Serving large and small business from Real Estate Marketing to the Chemical Industry. Contact Richard by visiting http://www.ClientByDesign.com
by: James Doc Lewis
From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and “buy” traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the “big boys” at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don’t think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I’d rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on its first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the “SERP’s” (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, “green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing”) that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I’ll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don’t need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it’s own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the “pay” stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no “Top Secret” practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can’t be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A SEO expert will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any “shortcuts” or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it’s all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn’t carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It’s more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don’t normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the “right fit” into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, “Am I your only client?” I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
About the author:
James ‘Doc’ Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/Emerald Coast Entrepreneur. Doc started practicing his magic long before the term SEO was even coined and continues to study and perfect methods of workable and cost effective SEO and SEM, devising unique solutions to diverse marketing challenges.
Once the keywords have been decided for the site one has to come up with a strategy to target those keywords across the site. Here is a primer on that.
Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword of Single word:
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Keyword of Single word is useful to attract general audience and helps in getting high rank ,if the web site is new. Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword of Single word is that they should be more used in the root level pages or top level domain pages. This is because these pages are the ones that attract the general traffic & are generally the pages which do not specify specifics. Hence single word keywords based on themes can be targeted for on these pages.
Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword of Multiple words:
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Keyword of Multiple words are useful for attract targeted audience therefore should be used topic wise for each page according to subject of that web page. Relevant set of Keywords should be use in Title tag, Header Tag, Meta tag, Body tag, Alt tag, Anchor tag, Comment tag and in the url (uniform resource locator) of that specific web page. Use underscore or hyphen to differentiate Keywords. These keywords are normally targeted upon in deeper level or sub directory level pages.
Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword based on Theme:
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Keyword based on theme is useful to attract targeted audience therefore they are strongly recommended to be used. Typically, although it is not a hard and fast rule but in theme based keyword we use general keywords in root level and uses specific keyword in directory level.
Overall one can safely say that in keyword targeting one uses a dart board strategy. Wherein the smallest circle attracts your core audience & hence should have theme oriented multiple word keywords. As we move up on the theme (dartboard) the circle ( traffic) tends to get larger & the keywords tends to get simpler( singular) even though they are theme based.
KEYWORDS and KEYPHRASES usage in Domain Name:
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Keywords and keyphrases use in Domain Name & urls of directory pages is also a factor in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well as it helps to inform targeted audience, about the sites content . Therefore, special care should be exercised in choosing a domain name. All the search engines start reading each web page with its respective domain name.
Having said that, let me add that there is a raging debate amongst the seo community to determine the exact importance of keywords in the domain name. One camp believes that it is hugely important to have keywords in domain whereas the other maintains that brand building domain name is more important than keywords incorporating one.
Whether keyword is a factor or not is debateble however it has been observed that domain name extensions do definitely play a part in rankings. Search engines ( specially google) have a predilection for sites having extension .gov,.edu,.mil in domain name. Search engines believe that information available at these domains would have a greater likelihood of being authentic as no commercial interest is served here.
Domain Name can be classifieds into two categories:
1. Keyword Specific
2. Brand Name Specific
Keyword Specific Domain Name
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When Keywords and Keyphrases are used in a Domain name then its called Keyword specific Domain name.
Keyword in the domain name to my mind has two advantages.
One It is better to have a keyword domain name for it is worth remembering that most of the people link to you using your URL. If your URL has the keyword or the keyphrase then you are automatically using the keyword in the very important anchor tag.
Secondly, though marginally, in a ranking scenario with every other parameter remaining equal, the Keyword Specific Domain Name will enjoy a slight edge over the other web site. However remember Keyword used in Domain name should be primary and generic. Specific keywords can be used in the sub domains. Read about the use of subdomains.
Keywords and Keyphrases uses with hyphen/underscore in Domain name are said to preferred as they are read by search engines as separate words. So the domain name can have a search phrase incorporated into it. However the flip side of it is that domain names with hyphen or underscore are inconvenient to carry.
Brand Name Specific Domain Name
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When company or organizations’ name is used in Domain Name to brand it then it’s called as Brand Name Specific Domain name.
Brand Name Specific Domain Name does not help online searches at all. However they are very powerful tools for company identification in the mind of users. In the anonymous online world a brand spells loyalty, trust & value. So if you choose to go for building your brand rather than deep rooted optimization, one way of incorporating keywords is through your directories & pages names.
KEYWORD DENSITY
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Keyword Density is a proportion of the searched term ( Keyword or Keyphrase) against the whole words written on a given page. The ideal Keyword Density is 6%-8% though various search engines have various tolerance levels before their spam filters get activated. Higher Keyword Density does help to boost a pages’ ranking.
Keyword Density can be increased by using target keywords repeatedly in Title tag, Header tag, Body tag, Comment tag, Alt tag, Anchor tag, Paragraph Tag , Domain name and in diretory/page names.
However one disadvantage of trying to hike the keyword density is that the visible text on the page starts to look spammy if it is not carefully crafted. That makes for a bad copy.
About the author:
I’m an Online Marketing consultant at Mosaic Services- an SEO Company. I regularly write and submit articles on various SE specific topics.
Keyword Targeting Strategy In Your Site
by: Rakesh Ojha
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optimization
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by: Rob Sullivan
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| The Good and the Bad of SEO – From Googles Mouth!
I recently had the opportunity to ask questions of some Google staffers. There were some questions I felt I needed to get verification on, so when I had the opportunity via a conference call I took it.
In this article I highlight some of the points made during the call so you know what Google thinks.
You know its bad when you take time from your holidays to come into work to attend a conference call. But that’s what I did a few weeks ago. You see I had to because I was going to have the opportunity to ask some Google employees specific questions on things that I’d been pretty sure about, but wanted to hear it right from the horses mouth.
The call lasted less than an hour, but in that time I found that there were many things I figured were indeed true. So lets start with the most obvious:
Is PageRank still important?
The short answer is yes – PageRank has always been important to Google. Naturally they couldn’t go into details but it is as I suspected. Google still uses the algorithm to help determine rankings. Where it falls in the algo mix, though, is up for speculation. My feeling however is that they’ve simply moved where the PageRank value is applied in the grand scheme of things. If you want to know what I think, be sure to read this article.
Are dynamic URLs bad?
Google says that a dynamic URL with 2 parameters “should” get indexed. When we pressed a bit on the issue we also found that URLs themselves don’t contribute too much to the overall ranking algorithms. In other words, a page named Page1.asp will likely perform as well as Keyword.asp.
The whole variable thing shouldn’t come as a surprise. It is true that Google will indeed index dynamic URLs and I’ve seen sites with as many as 4 variables get indexed. The difference however is that in almost all cases I’ve seen the static URLs outrank the dynamic URLs especially in highly competitive or even moderately competitive keyword spaces.
Is URL rewriting OK in Google’s eyes?
Again, the answer is yes, provided the URLs aren’t too long. While the length of the URL isn’t necessarily an issue, if they get extremely long they can cause problems.
In my experience, long rewritten URLs perform just fine. The important thing is the content on the page.
That was a common theme throughout the call – content is king. Sure optimized meta tags, effective interlinking and externalizing JavaScript all help, but in the end if the content isn’t there the site won’t do well.
Do you need to use the Google Sitemap tool?
If your site is already getting crawled effectively by Google you do not need to use the Google sitemap submission tool.
The sitemap submission tool was created by Google to provide a way for sites which normally do not get crawled effectively to now become indexed by Google.
My feeling here is that if you MUST use the Google sitemap to get your site indexed then you have some serious architectural issues to solve.
In other words, just because your pages get indexed via the sitemap doesn’t mean they will rank. In fact I’d bet you that they won’t rank because of those technical issues I mentioned above.
Here I’d recommend getting a free tool like Xenu and spider your site yourself. If Xenu has problems then you can almost be assured of Googlebot crawling problems. The nice thing with Xenu is that it can help you find those problems, such as broken links, so that you can fix them.
Once your site becomes fully crawlable by Xenu I can almost guarantee you that it will be crawlable and indexable by the major search engine spiders.
Does clean code make that much of a difference?
Again, the answer is yes. By externalizing any code you can and cleaning up things like tables you can greatly improve your site.
First, externalizing JavaScript and CSS helps reduce code bloat which makes the visible text more important. Your keyword density goes up which makes the page more authoritative.
Similarly, minimizing the use of tables also helps reduce the HTML to text ratio, making the text that much more important.
Also, as a tip, your visible text should appear as close to the top of your HTML code as possible. Sometimes this is difficult, however, as elements like top and left navigation appear first in the HTML. If this is the case, consider using CSS to reposition the text and those elements appropriately.
Do Keywords in the domain name harm or help you?
The short answer is neither. However too many keywords in a domain can set off flags for review. In other words blue-widgets.com won’t hurt you but discount-and-cheap-blue-and-red-widgets.com will likely raise flags and trigger a review.
Page naming follows similar rules – while you can use keywords as page names, it doesn’t necessarily help (as I mentioned above) further, long names can cause reviews which will delay indexing.
How many links should you have on your sitemap?
Google recommends 100 links per page.
While I’ve seen pages with more links get indexed, it appears that it takes much longer. In other words, the first 100 links will get indexed right away, however it can take a few more months for Google to identify and follow any links greater than 100.
If your site is larger than 100 pages (as many are today) consider splitting up your sitemap into multiple pages which interlink with each other, or create a directory structure within your sitemap. This way you can have multiple sitemaps that are logically organized and will allow for complete indexing of your site.
Can Googlebot follow links in Flash or JavaScript
While Googlebot can identify links in JavaScript, it cannot follow those links. Nor can it follow links in Flash.
Therefore I recommend having your links elsewhere on the page. It is OK to have links in flash or JavaScript but you need to account for the crawlers not finding them. Therefore the use of a sitemap can help get those links found and crawled.
As alternatives I know there are menus which use JavaScript and CSS to output a very similar looking navigation system to what you commonly see with JavaScript navigation yet uses static hyperlinks which crawlers can follow. Therefore do a little research and you should be able to find a spiderable alternative to whatever type of navigation your site currently has.
Overall, while I didn’t learn anything earth shattering, it was good to get validation “from the horses mouth” so to speak.
I guess it just goes to show you that there is enough information out there on the forums and blogs. The question becomes determine which of that information is valid and which isn’t. But that, I’m afraid, usually comes with time and experience.
About the author:
Rob Sullivan - SEO Specialist and Internet Marketing Consultant. http://www.textlinkbrokers.com |
Search Engine Optimization Glossary
Algorithm: A set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the pages contained within its index in response to a particular query. No search engine reveals exactly how its algorithm works, to protect itself both from competitors and from those who wish to spam the search engine.
Back links: These are links to a website from external sources, including other web pages, directories, and advertising.
Banned: When pages are removed from a search engine’s index because the search engine has deemed them to be spamming, or violating one of the search engine’s other rules.
Click-through rate: How many people clicked on a link, as a percentage of the total number of people that saw the link.
Cloaking: The act of serving content to search engine spiders that is different to what normal visitors would see. Search engines will ban you if they find you doing this.
Contextual links: Contextual links are displayed on web pages when the content on the page indicates to an ad server that the page is a good match for specific keywords or phrases.
Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors to a website who buy something.
Cost per click (CPC): A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click someone makes on a link leading to their website.
Cost per mille (CPM): A system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for the number of times an ad is seen, regardless of how many people actually click through. The ‘mille’ refers to one thousand viewings of the ad.
Crawler: A component of a search engine that gathers listings by automatically ‘crawling’ the web, following links to understand how pages are connected.
De-listing: This is when pages are removed from a search engine’s index, usually because they haven’t been updated for a long time.
Directories: A type of search engine where listings are gathered by humans, rather than by automated web crawlers.
Doorway page: A web page created in the hope of improving another page’s ranking in a search engine’s listings. Doorway pages don’t give much information to the people viewing them.
Graphical inventory: Banners and other ads that appear depending on the keywords a page contains. This includes pop-ups, browser toolbars and rich media.
Index: The collection of information a search engine has that searchers can query.
Landing page: The web page that a visitor reaches after clicking your search engine listing.
Link popularity: A count of how ‘popular’ a page is based on the number of other pages that link to it.
Link: A link is text that you can click on to go to another website, or another page on the same website.
Listings: The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search.
Meta-search engine: A search engine that returns listings from two or more other search engines, instead of using its own index.
Meta tags: Tags placed in a web page’s code that pass information to search engine crawlers, browser software and some other applications.
Meta description tag: This meta tag allows pages to provide descriptions to search engines.
Meta keywords tag: Allows authors to add keywords to a page.
Meta robots tag: Allows page authors to keep some web pages from being indexed by search engines. Similar to a robots.txt file.
Natural listings: The listings that search engines do not sell. Instead, sites appear solely because a search engine believes it is important for them to be included, regardless of payment. Note that paid inclusion listings are still treated as natural listings by many search engines.
Outbound links: Links on one website that lead to other websites.
Paid inclusion: An advertising program where pages are guaranteed to be spidered and included in a search engine’s index in exchange for payment.
PPC: Pay-per-click – means the same as cost per click (CPC).
Paid listings: Listings that search engines sell to advertisers, usually through paid placement or paid inclusion programs.
Pay-for-performance: A term popularized by some search engines as a synonym for pay-per-click. It stresses to advertisers that they are only paying for ads that “perform” in terms of delivering traffic, as opposed to CPM-based ads, where ads cost money even if no-one clicks on them.
Paid placement: An advertising program where listings appear in response to particular search terms, with higher rankings typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers.
Rank: The order in which web pages are listed in search engine results.
Reciprocal link: A ‘link exchange’ in which two sites link to each other.
Results page: The page that appears after a user enters their search terms.
Robots.txt: A file used to keep web pages from being indexed by search engines.
Search engine: A service designed to allow users to search the web, or another database of information.
Search engine marketing (SEM): Marketing a website using search engines, whether you’re improving your ranking in natural listings, purchasing paid listings or some combination of the two.
Search engine optimization (SEO): Altering a website with onsite optimization and offsite optimization so that it ranks higher in the search engines.
Search terms: The words a searcher enters into a search engine’s search box.
Shopping search: Shopping search engines allow shoppers to search the web for products and their prices.
Spam: Any search engine marketing method that a search engine decides is detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant search results.
Spider: See crawler.
Submission: The act of sending a URL to a search engine, for inclusion in its index.
XML feeds: A process in which information about a page is fed to the index without using a crawler, for example using RSS.
The best advice is to follow a good search engine promotion system. Keep track of when you submit your sites and how soon they’re indexed — checking once a week is sufficient.
Ranking systems can be confusing and there are often complex factors involved, but you do not need to be an expert in the field to achieve top results. Take a chance – after all, you have nothing to lose
Good link partners are vital to the growth of your website. Without good link partners you won’t be ranked highly in the search engines, and you won’t receive the traffic you need to gain new customers and make new sales. Building high-quality links to your website helps it to succeed.
Websites that maintain good incoming links will get many targeted visitors from their link partners. These link partners are also a good source of information and can offer value for the visitors that come to your website more often. The idea behind link partners is to find web sites with complementary content so that you enhance your web site. For example, if you sell computers, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to link to a site that sells printers.
Linking to your competitors is much more dangerous. The fact of the matter is that when you link to your competitors you are handing them your business. They may be handing some of theirs back to you, but the trade off simply isn’t worth it. If you are in a situation where it is your product or theirs, do not link to them. Aside from the obvious issue of losing business to their site, you may even lose the returning link if you don’t keep an eye on it.
When dealing with link partners, there’s virtually no point unless you get reciprocal links. These links make your website look good, as well as getting you targeted traffic from users clicking on the links. When you are optimizing your site for key words, however, it is important to link to sites that provide more information regarding the content that you have provided. In cases like this, the link is already helping you. If you get a returning link in addition it’s like killing two birds with one stone.
With good-quality incoming links, you will benefit greatly from the increased traffic to your site. Most major search engines’ rankings are at least partly based on the number of quality links pointing to your website. Google Yahoo!,MSN, Live, Inktomi and more all use link popularity in their formula for calculating rankings.
The value of your link partner’s sites will be very important, as many of the search engines use this in determining how relevant your site is to the terms that are being searched on. A site with a page rank below three generally isn’t worth exchanging links with. Then again, if the site is on its way up, it might be a good idea to get in on the ground floor. If you are curious as to whether a site is going to be accumulating a higher page rank in a short period of time try going to http://www.iwebtool.com/rank and punching the site’s URL into the “backlink” tool or the “page rank predictor.” These will show you how many links the site has going to them and will let you know what the page rank could be within the next three months.
You must always keep an eye on the value, and use value-for-value exchanges only. Make sure that your link doesn’t get removed from any sites you link to, and remove your own link to them if it does. Many people will agree to link with you and then remove your link after a week or two. If you leave your site linked to them, then they’re the only one benefiting.
Good link partners are hard to find, and it will take some time for them to respond. You may have to contact them more than once, and probably won’t take you seriously if you just ask them to trade you links. It is important to provide them with information relating to your company and let them know why your link will be worth while to them. If you are serious about SEO, you will be able to let them know that you expect your page rank to explode within the next few months and you may be able to accumulate links this way.
It’s important for to make sure that you links are checked on a regular basis. Of course you don’t have much control over the incoming links, but you can still do whatever you want with the outgoing ones. You should immediately remove any links that don’t work, as they can and will bring your search engine rankings down.
By understanding how link partnering works and maintaining good quality links on your website, you can increase your targeted traffic and improve your sales. After all, isn’t that the whole point of having an online business? Just remember that your website, like any other business, takes time and effort to make it succeed, and any little way you can speed up the process is good – as long as it’s not against the rules, of course.
There are millions of dollars and multiple hours spent every day trying to increase website traffic, by both ethical and unethical means. There is so much demand for traffic solutions that people will go to any lengths to get ranked higher in the search engines. But did you know that you could increase your traffic by about 20% right now, with virtually no effort?
Most times when you hear something like this I suggest that you turn tail and run as it will normally lead to your site’s ranking demise. This particular method of boosting traffic, however, is not a scam; it’s not an unethical ploy; it is a genuine method of increasing traffic. The reason that you can increase your traffic so vastly is because you are getting in on the ground floor of a new technology which will revolutionize the internet and the way that traffic is distributed.
To understand what we’re about to tell you, you need to understand what an RSS feed is. Put simply, it’s a standard format for sharing your content instantly with users and other websites. People can quickly get access to ‘teasers’ for your latest newsletters, articles, blogs, content and more, and click through to see the full version. This method of distributing your information is very helpful because it basically generates dynamic newsletters without spamming and without causing your visitor any grief at all. In fact, many users find RSS to be their preferred way to hear about updates as RSS is so fast, user-friendly, and (most importantly) dynamic.
RSS feeds are often used by news sites or blogs, as the content changes often enough to make it worth while. By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can improve your site’s web content without having to write it on your own – if someone offers you an RSS feed of their site, you can add it to your site easily. This provides you with a good content base which will keep visitors coming back. The more information that people associate your site with the more important they consider your site. The more important they consider your site, the more important search engines will consider your site. Providing RSS yourself will get lots of people to link to you and so potentially improve your search engine rankings. Why?
1. RSS feeds can provide good, relevant content for your website – there are plenty of RSS publishers with themed content for you to choose from. These highly-targeted feeds will often contain your keywords, and so increase the keyword relevancy of your website. This helps even more than you may think as the key words will be within link or “anchor” tags. Search engines value anchor tags almost as much (if not more than) header tags (h1-h6).
2. RSS feeds can provide new, fresh content. When new content is added to them, the old content drops off, making sure that your website’s content doesn’t go stale. Most of your visitors will not visit your site if they find that there is nothing new between the first and second time that they visit it. If you want to keep your visitors where they belong, you have to have a good selection of content that is updated on a regular basis.
3. RSS feeds can get search engines to crawl your site more frequently – daily in some cases. This helps your site to rank higher in the search engines, and gives you an advantage over your competition. Your RSS feed can do your SEO work for you.
RSS feeds can be great for getting your newsletter, articles, or blog onto other people’s sites, and that’s very powerful, as long as you make sure that your RSS feed is adding more to your business than it takes. In some situations, you might find that including RSS on your page makes visitors click away from your site, as they find that site’s content more interesting than you – and people who click on RSS links might be less likely to click on ads. Use caution with RSS feeds, or you could be in for a shock.
10 Tips for Raising Your Search Engine Rankings.
Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a website that needs more traffic. If your website doesn’t have a good position in the rankings then no-one will find it, so you need to make sure that your website is ranked highly enough to be seen. The other important quality to getting high traffic to your site is having a nice arsenal of links. The more links that you have to your site the more traffic you will get, but also, the more links to your site the more search engines like your site. Keeping a nice supply of links pointing at your site requires similar precautions and practices as getting high search engine listings.
Although no SEO company can guarantee a high ranking for your site, here are some tips for raising your search engine ranking. Using these tips will not get you to the top unless your site is the best out there, but they will at least put you into the positioning that you truly deserve. After all, the internet is basically a free market. You will naturally flow into the place that you deserve and many search engines try to insure that you do not rise above or fall below this position. This is why they are so strict, and this is why you must keep yourself on good terms with them.
1) Content is an important factor in high search engine rankings. Make sure that you have plenty of content throughout your site with your target keywords in the articles. It’s also worth doing a search for websites similar to yours and taking a look at their articles for ideas. The more content you have the better. It is generally a good idea to have between three hundred and five hundred words per page, but more important than a quantity of content is the quality of the content that you are providing. You cannot just put out three hundred words of jargon and expect your visitors to find it interesting and stick around for the long haul.
2) Your website’s URL can help you rank higher with the search engines if it contains your keywords. However, don’t think that naming your site after your keywords will always help your rankings – you need to do more than just that.
3) Search terms should be written out in text, instead of graphics. If you do use pictures, be sure to give them alt tags. The alt tags in your pictures are almost as important as text. It’s also a good idea to put some of your key words in links to other pages. In the eyes of a search engine it is almost as good to have a link to a page full of the content that the visitor is looking for as it is to have the content that the visitor is looking for on your page. If a visitor is looking for something that you are linking to and he or she finds your page, they may look around your site on the way through.
4) The title of your page is very important, and making sure that you choose it wisely will make a big difference. Terms such ‘free article on safe children’s toys’, or ‘contact the children’s toy expert today’ are good to use as titles, for example – they would get you a high ranking. The title area is the most important place to include your keyword phrases, so make sure that you put them all in.
5) The navigation menu that appears on each page of your website should include your page’s title.
6) Don’t just use the most popular keyword phrases – the market is so competitive that you should be sure to include some niche keywords too.
7) Make sure that you don’t have a lot of irrelevant links on your site. The more closely related to your site your links are, the better your chances of being ranked in a higher position.
You need to periodically update the content of your website, even if it’s only a slight change, as websites like sites that are kept updated.
9) You need to consider the fact most search engines don’t like automatic submissions or multiple submissions – submit once, manually.
10) Always be on the look out for SEO news – staying up to date and using the latest techniques will help you stay one step ahead of your competition.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, buut you can’t fool Google
Almost daily, I see a report about a company or individuals who is trying to fool Google through SEO. When are they going to learn that you just can’t fool Google? Why would you even want to try it, with when you risk being banned from the biggest search engine in the world? Many people seem to try just because they wonder if it could ever be done. As a general rule of thumb: it can’t!
There are some instances in which people think that they have tricked google. They believe that something that they have done has rocketed their site to the top of Google’s listings and they truly believe that they have managed to “stick it to the man.” Nine times out of ten when this happens they either performed an SEO procedure that Google allows or even endorses or they just happened to fill Google’s criteria better than other sites in their category without even realizing it.
Once in a while someone will actually come up with a way to fool Google. They will be enjoy a nice high spot on google’s listings for maybe even several months, but then the end comes for these proud sites. As soon as Google notices that it has been cheated, these sites are removed from the index; sometimes permanently.
The fact is that these people don’t understand the power that Google has. Anyone with a real interest in making money from the web should consider that getting banned from the search engines effectively removes your site from the web. They don’t have to let you back in, and they don’t have to give you any right to respond – you’re entirely at their mercy. You don’t want to get in their bad books.
Aside from the fact that Google will remove you from its listings, there is another incentive against trying to fool Google. If you fool Google, you are fooling your clients. There is no reason to try to lure visitors onto your page expecting to get something and really giving them something else. This is a poor way to conduct business and more often than not it will chase the customer away for good.
If you want your website to be found in categories that don’t apply to it, try purchasing ads on pages that are listed towards the top of the Google listings in these categories. You can actually increase your sites reputation in Google’s eyes rather than hurting it by adding another link to your site. This is an excellent form of marketing because it allows you to reach out beyond your market simply by dishing out a few dollars a month.
Some of the most popular methods of trying to fool Google’s PageRank system are link farms and link exchanges. Link farms are basically websites that exist only to get links to specific sites counted by the search engines. Link exchanges are groups of websites that each pay a monthly fee to link to each other – like link farms, only more expensive and dodgy. In both cases, the websites involved are attempting to climb the ranks of Google’s search results through the sheer quantity of links to them –this is known as Googlebombing. But it doesn’t always work.
Google knows that cheaters can ruin their search engine for the rest of us. After all, if link farms inflate the rankings of less-useful Websites, then we’ll all start seeing worse search results. That’s why Google constantly updates PageRank to keep those kinds of sites away. The Page Rank formula that Google implements is mysterious and ever changing. This is the primary reason that Google cannot be fooled.
It has been found recently that Google is now sending out ‘cloak bots’, disobeying robots.txt to find out whether sites are ‘cloaking’ – serving a different page to search engines than what visitors see. These ‘cloak bots’ are controversial but seem to have some positive effects on the Google’s results.
Unethical methods make it difficult for people who are trying to do SEO the proper way, which is one of the reasons why it needs to be monitored so carefully. If people stopped trying to find ways to manipulate the system, it would be much easier to keep up with what’s going on.
As you may already know, Google publishes a list of guidelines suggesting legitimate ways to improve a site’s ranking, by making it more accessible and better. One of the tips is to make pages for users and not for search engines. You’d do well to listen to their advice.
Arbitrage Conspiracy is finally here! Once in a while a unique new product hits the market. It doesn’t happen often these days, and when it does it’s both refreshing, and very exciting. Now while a new product is kinda cool, it isn’t that big of a deal, until you find out the developers of this methodology NET between $50,000.00 and $100,000.00 a day. Yes A DAY. What is it? It’s a new twist on an old concept of an Underused, under exploited and WAY under-estimated stream of traffic with insane potential. This is the first and only chance you may have to learn from someone who regularly makes $100,000 a DAY online. Brad Fallon of StomperNet has just made a video talking about a closed door event last week where these guys spoke, and blew away all the Guru’s. Go watch it now, and grab the Arbitrage Conspiracy 25-page report that might just change the way you approach… forever. You too can attend the conference call with Brad Fallon, Mike Filsaime, Eben Pagan, Yanik Silver, Shawn Casey, Tellman Knudson, Buck Rizvi and Aymen on Arbitrage Conspiracy.
December 10th,2008
Arbitrage Conspiracy | tags:
Arbitrage Conspiracy,
Aymen,
Brad Fallon,
Buck Rizvi,
Eben Pagan,
Mike Filsaime,
PPC,
PPC Arbitrage,
Shawn Casey,
Tellman Knudson,
Yanik Silver |
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