Archive for August, 2007
published by Dan in SEO Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is a set of web tools that Google offers to help manage your website. There are basically three things you can do using the tools available here:
1. Find out your sites existing and potential problems as seen by Google.
From the start Google will automatically tell you whether your site has been indexed or not. If it hasn’t it will prompt you to verify your site and give you the reasons why Google is having problems crawling your site. You can also use the tools there to diagnose whether Google is having any problems with your Robots.txt file.
2. Find out how your website is performing.
Webmaster Tools are also a good source of important information about your site. Though statistics about your site’s traffic can be found using Google Analytics and other non-Google analysis software what you will really useful is the indexing information Google will share with you. It shows how your site is indexed and if they find any violations within your site, which if you are unaware of will result in penalties. The great thing about this is that since you know about it Google gives you a chance to actually tweak your site and correct the problem pages so it can be reindexed.
3. Actively submit information about your site to Google to help increase your site’s crawlability.
Google lets you submit sitemap files (XML files) so that it will be easier to index your pages. Another benefit of sitemaps is that it gives them information on the frequency of page updates. Aside from this, those with multiple domains can submit to Google their preferred domain so that Google will index the domain you want as well as be aware that the other domains are not just plagiarizing your content.
Popularity: 19% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Tools
Anyone serious about SEO knows that Google is the search engine to impress. If your website is among the top results of Google’s SERPs then you can be pretty sure that it will be the same with other search engines. Because of this everyone in the SEO world is very keen on observing and analyzing ways to get a better rank in Google. Fortunately, though very secretive about the actual algorithm involved, Google has always been friendly not only to search users but to Webmasters.
To aid webmasters in their effort to get their respective websites indexed as fast as possible and do well in terms of page rank Google provides excellent resources and tools for webmasters via Webmaster Central. Of course, all webmasters know about Google Webmaster Central. The question though is who among you have really read the contents thoroughly? And even more important who follows the guidelines and suggestions? Granted that Google makes no promises anywhere in the Webmaster Central regarding the results following the guidelines will yield, it makes sense to say that NOT following the guidelines will surely produce negative results. Furthermore since they also have a Google Webmasters blog, any sensible webmasters would have had subscribed to the blog a lot time ago. After all it is where you will find the latest Google is willing to share from conferences (SES Conference)to updates regarding Webmaster Tools. So just in case you have been overlooking the benefits Webmaster Central can give you do check it out to day and use the Webmaster Tools they provide.
Popularity: 18% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
Misconception #3 - Sitemaps and Page Rank
Sitemaps will help your page rank. This statement just isn’t true. Sitemaps are created and maintained simply because it helps give search engines information they need to crawl your website. They do not influence your page rank whatsoever.
Misconception #4 - Sitemaps are not really important.
In my previous post I mentioned how sitemaps ONLY help in the discovery of your webpages AFTER your site has already been indexed. I emphasize the word ONLY because you might get the wrong idea that sitemaps are not that useful after all, which would lead to another new misconception. Sitemaps may not be essential to get your website indexed nor will it help your page rank go up but you should never underestimate the effects of having your webpages indexed faster. Anyone who’s in business knows that the longer you put off opening your shop (when everything else is ready), the more money you lose. The same is true with websites. The longer it takes for ALL your webpages to be indexed the longer it takes for your page rank to go up. What this means is that the longer it will also take for you to get more traffic from search engines. Though sitemaps might not determine page rank the discovery of your pages is important for them to even be ranked at all and contribute to your entire website’s value.
Popularity: 12% [?]
published by Dan in SEO
A sitemap is a very useful tool when it comes to SEO and shouldn’t be overlooked. However, the purpose and importance of sitemaps are sometimes misunderstood and website owners of new websites get disappointed due to their erroneous expectations of what a sitemap can do.
Misconception #1 - Kind of Sitemap
One of the most common misconceptions about sitemaps is the very definition of what it is. Those who do not know anything about web design automatically assume that the sitemap referred to by SEO experts is a page dedicated to helping visitors visualize the website layout or structure. This sitemap, also called HTML sitemap, is very useful to visitors for navigation purposes. However, while it is recommended that websites provide HTML sitemaps for their visitors this is NOT the sitemap we are concerned about SEO-wise. The sitemap SEO experts mean when they advice you to use or create a sitemap is a sitemap file (XML file) to be submitted to Google through your Google Sitemaps Account. You can also submit the XML file to Yahoo, Ask, and MSN Search.
Misconception #2 - Purpose of a Sitemap
I have come across SEO articles telling its readers that they should use sitemaps to get their sites indexed by search engines. This is absolutely wrong. Sitemap files do not get your site indexed. What it does is it help your webpages be indexed faster. This may seem like splitting hairs but it is important that you understand that whether or not you have a sitemap search engines will still find your website using the same old ways (URL submission and plain old crawling). This means that if your website is new your first goal is to be indexed. A sitemap will not magically make that happen. What a sitemap will do for you though is that once your website has been discovered by search engines, the sitemap file you submitted will make crawling and indexing pages within your site much faster.
Popularity: 17% [?]
published by Gary in SEO Meetings
DaveN and Peter both UK SEO Gurus are arranging an SEO Meeting up on the 14/15th of September.
I have not been to this type of SEO event before, it sounds relaxed and a bit of a giggle, and I am sure I would learn loads, brush up on the latest SEO techniques etc (have to justify the expenses), so why not.
Hotel booked!!
See you there!! (And for those that I don’t, I will let you know how I get on).
Popularity: 20% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Strategy
Just how much value search engines place on text layout/formatting is not yet known. However, we know what text formats search engines do not index (as mentioned in the last post) and we also have a general idea of what can be done to increase the optimize on-page text.
Below are some things you can do to optimize your on-page text.
1. Use key words/phrases frequently - By frequently I don’t mean overusing the words and resorting to keyword stuffing. Repeating the necessary terms throughout the document will, however, reinforce its importance to the website. Make sure you also use close deviations of your primary keywords.
2. On-topic and quality writing - Search engines do not just search keywords and then index everything. They use advanced algorithms to be able to determine which websites contain quality content and sub-standard ones. This means that you should make sure you have for informative/substantial, original, relevant, and well-written content. This is very important since the effects is far greater than just a better page rank. It will provide real service to your visitors increasing retention/loyalty and hopefully traffic as word about the quality of your site gets out.
3. Writing Style - The journalistic format is often the best style to use. Start of with an overview of the topic before going into details. This tactic is not really proven to do much for your SEO but at the least it will make your content easier to read and provide a consistent professional tone.
4. Use CSS - Using CSS is more desirable than using tables to achieve the layout you want. Tables result in the breaking up of text in the code, unless you take extra care for this not to happen, while using CSS ensures a continuous text flow. Broken up text is not a good thing since it will make it difficult for search engines to put keywords into proper context.
Popularity: 13% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Basics
Last month I wrote some posts on how to make sure your web pages are search engine spider-friendly. Today I’ll be focusing on how to make sure that the visible text on your web pages are “spider-friendly”. To start off here are some text styles that are definitely NOT not recognizable to search engines.
1. Text in images (jpeg, gif, etc)
2. Text embedded in Flash and Java apps
3. Text that can only be accessed thru on-page actions like submitting a form.
Since text presented in the above formats cannot be indexed by search engines the first rule in making sure that your text is search engine spider-friendly is to avoid putting them in the above format. Of course there are instances when you need to make use of images and Flash and or Java applications. For businesses it is also very common to make use of on-page actions for transactions. The point though is to minimise the use of these and during times that you do make sure that you use ALT tags to indicate what the images contain (this is an altogether different topic and won’t be tackled in depth at this time). Of course if the entire page is mostly composed of text presented this way just make sure you make use of the proper keywords in key placements (Title Tag, URL, Header Tag, and Link) and wherever else you can add the keywords, whether visible to visitors or not. Just make sure you don’t resort to cloaking and that you only insert keywords for legitimate purposes!
Next up… A discussion on how to optimize the visible text in your website.
Popularity: 14% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Strategy
Some inbound links come unsolicited and unoptimized. Of course you can’t complain about that and should be grateful because they even linked back to your site (unless that site has a really bad rep in which case you can ask that site to remove the link to you). However, if you are going on a link building campaign and plan on soliciting some inbound links then there are some simple things you can do to encourage website owners and webmasters to use optimized links.
One of these things it to provide the title and description (containing the important keywords and phrases you want to be included) that they can use as anchor text to accompany the link. Instead of just giving them your website’s name and URL providing a title and description will lessen their work and encourage them to not just relegate your link to the sidebar or be mentioned just in passing but to be highlighted and used as part of the main content. Make sure that the title and description in an informative yet concise manner to make it look very professional.
It is also a good idea to give them several links to various parts/sections of your website which have content that might be of interest to them. Just make sure you accompany each and every link with a title and description.
Another thing you can do is to not just provide the tile and description but to actually provide the whole HTML code they can just cut and paste. This will save them even more time and thus encourage them to use your link as is without editing it.
Popularity: 12% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Strategy
Since I stressed the importance of anchor texts in my last post I thought it would be fitting to discuss how to optimize anchor texts. Optimizing the anchor text used in internal links is very important since it helps enhance the relevance of your web pages depending on the content of each page. To optimize anchor text for internal links the first rule is, as we all know, to use relevant keywords instead of vague words.
One of my peeves is seeing links wasted because of the lack of keywords. For example in the sentence below I completely wasted the opportunity of putting keywords in a key placement.
Read my post on Key Placement for Keywords here.
The correct way to do it is:
Read my post on Key Placement for Keywords.
Sometimes though we find ourselves with sentences wherein it makes more sense to place links along with vague words (like here and this). When this happens do take some time and exert a little effort to restructure your sentence so as to be able to put keywords in the anchor text.
Another thing you will notice is that before I even gave the contrasting examples I already used the key phrase as an anchor text within the paragraph. Using keywords and phrases in natural text as anchor text is a very good idea since it not only allows you to link to important sections of the site and encourage your reader to visit that page but it also does this in a manner that does not disrupt the flow of thought. Of course it isn’t good to do this too often but to make sure that you only do this for really important highlights. If you insert too many links in your main content it will be an eyesore and fail in drawing attention to the keywords and phrases that deserve to be highlighted.
Popularity: 12% [?]
published by Dan in SEO Basics
Last time I discussed how context is important in determining the quality of inbound links. I was only able to discuss two of the three things that helps search engines determine the context of the link - the subject matter of the page containing the link and the text adjacent to the link. Today I will discuss the last factor, which is the anchor text.
The importance of the Anchor text of the link is something your probably know about. After all time and again SEO tips and advice always stress that you should pick the most important keywords when to use in your anchor text. Of course, you do not have the power to choose the anchor text that the linking site will use but you can be certain that a link with a keyword/phrase that is really relevant to your site’s content will help boost your page rank. On the other hand, links that don’t make use of an anchor text will not be as valuable to you in terms of SEO.
The funny thing about the effect of anchor texts on SEO is that it can make you ranl well for specific search terms that you might not have really aimed to rank well for. This happens when linking sites use keywords/phrases that are not that relevant to your web page’s content or just copy paste a figurative or flashy title/heading you used but isn’t really what the content is all about. News sites and blogs are most affected by this because people often link to specific stories/entries and use the story title as the anchor text instead of keywords. So if you want to avoid this happening to your site use important keywords in page headers so that linking sites that simply copy headers will also end up using the keywords you chose. On the otherhand, you can also simply enjoy the traffic that the unrelated keyword send your way.
Popularity: 13% [?]
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