Other Search Sources

Other Search Sources: Image, Video, Local, Content Partners

“Connect people with their passions…” “Organize the world’s information…” It’s a tall order! To keep up with their own mission statements and searchers’ appetites, the search engines are increasingly adding results that are more than just links to individual web pages. These include images, videos, news, local listings with maps and reviews, and even entertainment or shopping opportunities from partner companies. It takes a practiced eye to know whether the listing you’re looking at is paid, free, lucky, or impossible to get without a couple mil in your pocket.

Paid Search Ads

Paid Search Ads


No matter how blurred the line between unpaid and paid search gets in the search engine results, you, as the SEO expert, will always know the difference. That’s because, while it’s possible to get listed in robot search engines, meta search engines, and even directories without actually doing anything, you (or someone you delegate) will have to actively implement and carefully manage any paid advertising for your own site. And, of course, there’s that little matter of the checkbook, too.

Pay-per-click (PPC) services are the simplest paid search option. Here’s how it works: You open an account with a PPC engine, such as Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. You decide which search terms you want your site to be seen for, and you write your own listing (or often, several different listings) to correspond with your chosen terms. Every time a searcher clicks on your listing, you pay the PPC engine a fee. You control the amount you want to spend for each click (your bid), and this is a major factor in the placement of your listing.

Paid search is the SEO marketing venue over which you have the most control. It offers you a chance to micro-manage your website marketing by being able to target specific messages to specific terms, and even specific geographical locations. It gives you the opportunity to change your message on a whim, and it provides some of the most conclusive tracking around. Therefore, although paid search is by no means a requirement for good SEO, it’s an Eternally Attractive Option to have available to you.

Nonprofit

Nonprofit

Those of you in nonprofit organizations are working with a different sort of bottom line for your websites. Rather than following the corporate mantra of “money, money,and more money,” you fine people are out there trying to change the world, educate, and improve society! And as a thank-you from the world of web search, you have some huge advantages in SEO.

Advantage: Linkability The culture of the Web generally adores noncommercial content—something that your website should be chock-full of. And, let’s face it, giving you a link doesn’t cost a thing. Any webmaster or blogger who supports your cause or at least has no major problem with it—will see adding a link as a cheap and easy way to help out. You will want to adjust your SEO plan accordingly, giving extra effort to link building.

And what is even better than inbound links from other sites? How about some fabulous “site of the day” awards from major web presences like Yahoo! and USAToday.com? “Site of the day” editors are always on the lookout for worthy sites, and nonprofits are in a perfect position to tap into this source of visibility and traffic. It’s helpful—but not necessary—if you have something new on your site to show off. Be sure to include some time in Your SEO Plan for building that “site of the day” potential. Sure, it’s a little like winning the lottery of SEO, but for you, it’s worth a try. Your odds are a lot better than for-profit sites’ odds.

Advantage: Simple Website Structure And there’s more good news: Some of the characteristics that might, at first glance, seem like disadvantages for nonprofits are actually not so bad. Oftentimes, nonprofits are short on cash but have plenty of untrained personnel available. Since many SEO tasks don’t require a great deal of technical skill, using sharp-witted college students or interns might just be the SEO strategy that brings you to the top. Another “problem” that might not be as bad as you think: an old website. That’s right, your cruddy old 1999 website was probably built using no Flash, little JavaScript, and an absence of dynamic bells and whistles. Well, guess what? Those are just the things that can send search engine spiders packing anyway! A “classic” all-text site can be just the ticket for getting noticed by the search engines. Before you make any changes, make sure you aren’t in an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation.

Advantage: Less PPC Competition Many nonprofits think that there’s no way that they can survive in the competitive world of paid listings. However, there are a few ways that you can, as a nonprofit, get your foot in the door. For one, it’s possible that the keywords that matter most to you are not the same words that commercial organizations are vying for. After all, nobody’s out there selling “AIDS in China.” Even better, both Google and Yahoo! offer free advertising programs for nonprofits. Be sure to check their websites for current programs and availability.

Challenge: Internal Issues Internal disorganization, an overworked and underpaid workforce, lack of funding, and lack of a clear bottom line could throw hurdles in the way of Your SEO Plan. If you are a small operation, you may not even have a marketing department to manage the website. And without a clearly measurable bottom line, it may be very hard for you to prove the value of your efforts. You will need to do some creative thinking to figure out a way to get that return on investment (ROI) measured. Is there a specific event that you can promote? A campaign or drive that can be earmarked as an SEO testing ground? With any luck, your SEO campaign will be funding itself after a few months of effort. You may be surprised to find that it becomes one of the most important outreach venues your organization will use.

Robots Deliver

Robots Deliver

We’re going to start with the basics of how the search engines work, and a major component of this is a robot, or spider, which is software that gathers information about your site and brings it back to be analyzed by a powerful central “engine.” This activity is referred to as crawling or spidering. There are lots of different metaphors for how robots work, but we think ants make the best one. Think of a search engine robot as an explorer ant, leaving the colony with one thought on its mind: Find food. In this case, the “food” is HTML text, preferably lots of it, and to find it, the ant needs to travel along easy, obstacle-free paths: HTML links. Following these paths, the ant (search engine robot), with insect-like single-mindedness, carries the food (text) back to its colony and stores it in its anthill (search engine database). Thousands and thousands of the little guys are exploring and gathering simultaneously all over the Internet. If a path is absent or blocked, the ant gives up and goes somewhere else. If there’s no food, the ant brings nothing back.

So basically, when you think of a search engine, consider it a database that holds pieces of text that have been gathered from millions of sites all over the Web. What sets that engine in motion? A search. When a web surfer enters the term “grape bubble gum” into the search engine, all of the sites that might be relevant for that term are brought to the forefront. The search engine sifts through its database for sites containing terms like “grape growers,” “stock market bubble,” and “gum disease.” It uses a secret formula—a.k.a. a search ranking algorithm—to sort the results, and in a fraction of a second, a list of relevant sites, many containing the exact phrase “grape bubble gum,” (or with links from other sites containing this phrase) will be returned in the results page.

There are lots of things that factor into the way robot search engines determine the rank for their main search results. But just for a start, in order to be in the running for ranks, you need to provide HTML text to feed the search engines and HTML links as clear paths to the food. Keeping those robots well fed and happy is one of your biggest priorities.

Nonprofit

Nonprofit

Those of you in nonprofit organizations are working with a different sort of bottom line for your websites. Rather than following the corporate mantra of “money, money, and more money,” you fine people are out there trying to change the world, educate, and improve society! And as a thank-you from the world of web search, you have some huge advantages in SEO.

Advantage: Linkability The culture of the Web generally adores noncommercial content—something that your website should be chock-full of. And, let’s face it, giving you a link doesn’t cost a thing. Any webmaster or blogger who supports your cause or at least has no major problem with it—will see adding a link as a cheap and easy way to help out. You will want to adjust your SEO plan accordingly, giving extra effort to link building.

And what is even better than inbound links from other sites? How about some fabulous “site of the day” awards from major web presences like Yahoo! and USAToday.com? “Site of the day” editors are always on the lookout for worthy sites, and nonprofits are in a perfect position to tap into this source of visibility and traffic. It’s helpful—but not necessary—if you have something new on your site to show off. Be sure to include some time in Your SEO Plan for building that “site of the day” potential. Sure, it’s a little like winning the lottery of SEO, but for you, it’s worth a try. Your odds are a lot better than for-profit sites’ odds.

Advantage: Simple Website Structure And there’s more good news: Some of the characteristics that might, at first glance, seem like disadvantages for nonprofits are actually not so bad. Oftentimes, nonprofits are short on cash but have plenty of untrained personnel available. Since many SEO tasks don’t require a great deal of technical skill, using sharp-witted college students or interns might just be the SEO strategy that brings you to the top. Another “problem” that might not be as bad as you think: an old website. That’s right, your cruddy old 1999 website was probably built using no Flash, little JavaScript, and an absence of dynamic bells and whistles. Well, guess what? Those are just the things that can send search engine spiders packing anyway! A “classic” all-text site can be just the ticket for getting noticed by the search engines. Before you make any changes, make sure you aren't in an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation.

Advantage: Less PPC Competition Many nonprofits think that there’s no way that they can survive in the competitive world of paid listings. However, there are a few ways that you can, as a nonprofit, get your foot in the door. For one, it’s possible that the keywords that matter most to you are not the same words that commercial organizations are vying for. After all, nobody’s out there selling “AIDS in China.” Even better, both Google and Yahoo! offer free advertising programs for nonprofits. Be sure to check their websites for current programs and availability.

Challenge: Internal Issues Internal disorganization, an overworked and underpaid workforce, lack of funding, and lack of a clear bottom line could throw hurdles in the way of Your SEO Plan. If you are a small operation, you may not even have a marketing department to manage the website. And without a clearly measurable bottom line, it may be very hard for you to prove the value of your efforts. You will need to do some creative thinking to figure out a way to get that return on investment (ROI) measured. Is there a specific event that you can promote? A campaign or drive that can be earmarked as an SEO testing ground? With any luck, your SEO campaign will be funding itself after a few months of effort. You may be surprised to find that it becomes one of the most important outreach venues your organization will use.

One final word of encouragement: We asked SEO luminary Jill Whalen whether she thought do-it-yourselfers could do as good a job as professionals in SEO. Her response? “Absolutely!” You know your business—and all its nooks and crannies—better than anybody. After reading this chapter, you should have a long-view understanding of how you’ll need to approach SEO so that you can make the most of your advantages and minimize your challenges. In the next chapter, we’ll start talking details about the search engines. Get ready to be imbued with some Eternal Truths of SEO.

Which Pages Do I Most Want My Website Visitors to See?

Which Pages Do I Most Want My Website Visitors to See?

Now it’s time to start thinking about the top-priority pages for your SEO campaign. These are the pages you’ll optimize when you get to your daily tasks in Part III. These are the pages that you most want people to get to from the search engines, and for best results, they should contain the most compelling content and the most useful information. Since your visitors “land” on these pages from the search engines, we call them landing pages. The main functions of our landing pages are that they speak to your desired audience and contain a call to action for your desired conversion.

Often, your landing page and your conversion page will be the same. This is a great situation because your site visitor doesn’t have to navigate within your site to complete a conversion. Other times, your conversion page will not be an appropriate entry page because your visitor will need to review other information first and then make the decision to continue. After all, the Web is a highly nonlinear space, and your visitors are free to ramble around your site in all sorts of ways.

For the purposes of your SEO campaign, you need to ensure that for each type of conversion, there is at least one clear path between the search engine and the conversion outcome. We find it helpful to think backward: First consider where you want your visitor to end up, and then work backward to find a great page for them to enter your site.

What makes a good landing page? One with just the right information that your target audience is looking for. Vague enough for you? Don’t worry; we’ll walk you through the specifics of how to choose your landing pages and how to make sure the “right” information is on those pages. For now, we want you to begin thinking about what pages might work. If you don’t have any pages that fit the bill, don’t despair! Get some landing pages built if you can, or think about ways you can add compelling content to existing pages to turn them into excellent landing pages. And just a heads-up: Once you start your SEO campaign, all of your top-priority pages will probably need to be revised at least a little bit as part of the optimization process. Notice that the landing page ElderPets chose for this conversion is not the home page. Many site owners don’t think in terms of deeper pages and think that they just want their home page to be found on the search engines. But in truth, your home page is probably only good for achieving the most general of your goals. Your deeper pages are more likely to contain a wealth of specific information and specific calls to action that you’d be thrilled for a specific audience to find one click away from a search engine!

What Do I Want Visitors to Do on My Website?

What Do I Want Visitors to Do on My Website?

In SEO, the term conversion has come to mean your website users doing whatever it is you want them to do. So when we say “conversion,” think of it as shorthand for “Score one for you—you’re accomplishing your goals!” Wondering what your site’s conversion is? One of the really fun facts about SEO is this:

It’s your party—you decide what you want your guests to do. Now that you have all of your goals written down in black and white, defining a conversion should be easy. Here are a few likely examples: users “convert” when they:

1. Purchase a product
2. Fill out an RFI form
3. View a certain page on the site
4. Subscribe to a mailing list
5. Comment on a blog
6. Phone your 1-800 sales number
7. Drive to your retail store
8. Contribute to your political campaign
9. Change their mind about something
10. Find the information they were looking for
11. Read a classified ad

Now look at the “Conversions” table on your Goals Worksheet. You will need to have a conversion defined next to each goal. Some of the conversion definitions will be straightforward; others may seem vague or touchy-feely. There’s no harm in writing them all—we’ll help you sort them out later in your SEO campaign when you’re measuring results.

Do I Want to Visit My Website?

Who Do I Want to Visit My Website?

The fact that the person who you most want to find your website is the person who is searching for your website! And, of course, this is true. But now let’s dig a little deeper and describe your ideal audience so that you can help them make their way to you.

Who is the target audience for your website? Surely it will include potential clients/customers. But don’t forget that it may also include members of the press, employees at your own company, current and past customers seeking support, even potential investors nosing about for the inside scoop!

Using your Goals Worksheet, describe your target audience with as much detail as possible: professional status, technical vs. nontechnical, age, workplace vs. home users, and geographic locality. Knowing your target audience's will help you make important decisions—such as keyword choices, directory site submittals, and budget for paid listings—when you start your SEO campaign. It will also help you segment your site for each audience, which can improve your sales and other goals, as well as usability.

Jason at Babyfuzzkin says, “Our target audience is parents of infants and small children, with a great sense of style and plenty of surplus income. They are probably fairly technically savvy, maybe a little short on time because of the kids—that’s why they’re shopping online. Also, a lot of our customers are grandparents, buying the clothes as gifts. Some parents don’t want to spend as much on clothes they know are just going to get covered in oatmeal and grass stains! And the grandparents, they are a lot less savvy with the Internet. They use it from home, maybe with a slow connection, and they’re located nationwide.”

Elizabeth at ElderPets describes her target audience as “Caregivers or relatives of the elderly or infirm—they’re usually the ones who contact us about our services. Our volunteers range from high school students hoping to beef up their college applications to retirees who don’t have much money but want to do something worthwhile with their time. And then there’s our donors, who can be all over the map in terms of age and income and their status as individual, family, or business. The one thing that ties them together is that they love animals.”

Do I Need to Perform SEO for My Website?

Do I Need to Perform SEO for My Website?

It may seem like a no-brainer, but actually, the answer is not necessarily yes. If any of the following examples apply to you, you may not be in need of an SEO campaign right now:

You have a website that you really don’t want strangers to find, such as a training tool for your employees or a classroom tool for your students.

Your site is already ranking well, you’re satisfied with your sales, and you don’t want to rock the boat.

You’re in a big hurry—say, you’ll go out of business without a major upswing in revenue in the next couple of months. This is not to say that SEO can’t help you, but good SEO takes time. You may need to focus your energies elsewhere right now.

Your site is going to be completely rebuilt or redesigned in the next couple of months. If that’s the case, read Shari Thurow’s Search Engine Visibility to learn how to build a search-friendly site from the ground up.

You’ll want to keep our book on hand, though, for use as soon as your new site is launched.

If this list doesn’t apply to you, we think you’re ready to begin your SEO adventure!

It is a rare site indeed that couldn’t use a little improvement in the SEO department. And, with the importance of SEO on the rise, if you don’t need it today, it’s a good bet you’ll need to brush up your SEO smarts for tomorrow. So even if you don’t think you need SEO right now, we recommend that you take the time to work through the questions in this chapter and make sure that your goals aren’t begging for a little help.

Keyword Selection Is Key

Keyword Selection Is Key

Careful keyword selection is the heart of the SEO campaign. Site owners who are on top of their SEO game have a list of top-priority keywords that they use on their site, with reasonable repetition, in strategic places. We never let a site go for six months without checking the keywords to make sure they’re still appropriate. If a site’s focus or positioning changes, new keywords are in order. If a company adds new products or services, new keywords are in order. If a new competitor comes on the scene, it’s worth peeking into its site for new keyword ideas. Even if none of these changes takes place, regular keyword analysis is in order because search behavior and trends may change as well.

Meta Search Engines and Search Aggregators

Meta Search Engines and Search Aggregators

Some people are comparison shoppers, flitting from store to store to review all the merchandise before making a decision. For people who like to compare search results, meta search engines and search aggregators make it easy to review listings from different search engines in one screen—no flitting from site to site necessary. Simply put, these search engines compile and display results from several search engines and rank them according to their own algorithms. You can’t use SEO to improve your presence on these engines directly; if a meta search engine like Mamma.com or a search aggregator like A9.com is using MSN results, the way to do better on these engines is to do better on MSN.

Site Feeds

Site Feeds

Site feeds have been around for years in one form or another, but their methodology is still morphing. Available in various forms, they are Eternally Helpful for large or frequently updated sites. Just as you may use a feed reader to be notified of your favorite blog or news topic, the search engines use site feeds to sit back and receive information from websites without sending spiders out to constantly gather, gather, gather. Feeds work well for regularly edited websites such as blogs and news sites (feeding the content of their daily posts), online sellers (feeding up-to-the-minute commercial information such as product descriptions and prices), and media-rich websites. You may also have heard of trusted feed or paid inclusion programs where search engines allow certain “trusted”—and, usually, paying—websites to send the engines regular updates. Generally, these types of listings get thrown into the mix with robot-gathered sites and have to fend for themselves, with no special status in the ranking algorithms.

Directories

Directories

Unlike those robot search engines, directory listings are often compiled by humans. Whether these humans are editors who work for the search engines or the site owners themselves who write and submit their own listings, it is often easy to tell the difference between a directory and a robot search result. Take a look at this robot-generated listing from Google. It’s called a snippet—text slurped directly from the web page and spat out into the search results page.

Now take a look at this directory listing. Note the sentence-like structure, the human touch, and the category information.

Directories aren’t likely to come out and find you the way robots will; site owners need to submit to them manually. Sometimes you can purchase a listing, sometimes they’re free, and sometimes you pay for the “privilege” of having your submittal reviewed whether your site is included or not. Although it’s a little extra work to achieve directory listings, at least you can be relatively certain that your submittal will be reviewed by somebody and your site will have a fair chance of getting in. This is different from the robots, which do not guarantee review or inclusion.

Web Designer

Web Designer

Web designers are natural partners in SEO. After all, shouldn’t the person who designs and builds a website have a strong interest in knowing how to make it search friendly?

SEO has become positively mainstream. We’re betting you’ve already had a client ask for SEO, or you wish to add it to your service offerings. Want to use SEO for a bigger slice of the proposal pie or to gain a longer list of prospects? Here are some of the challenges and advantages we expect you’ll face:

Advantage: The Inside Track You’re already on the job, providing web design services. Your client trusts you, and the site files are nestled safely on your hard drive. Lucky for you, it is often difficult for an outside SEO consultant to be inserted into the very early stages of web design. This is because much of the website is still theoretical early on, and “theoretical” SEO can only get you so far. Use your status to your advantage: As the designer, you can easily introduce SEO early in the conversation and be sure it is integrated into design decisions throughout the process.

Challenge: Hucksters Abound No, no, we’re not talking about you. We’re talking about those other web designers. You know, the ones who feature SEO as an add-on to their regular services, and then just stick HTML titles on some pages, with no keyword research or insight to back them up? They probably charge a couple hundred bucks for the add-on, spend 10 minutes on the work, and accomplish nothing for their clients. Unfortunately, you have to compete with these guys. To protect your reputation (and ours!):

The “SEO on training wheels” approach in this book is great if you’re doing it inhouse, but, if you are an outsourced entity, you’ll be held to a higher standard. We have seen many a web developer–client relationship turn sour, all because the client paid good money for bad SEO. If you want to offer SEO as a stand-alone or add-on service, take a gradual approach. First, learn SEO fundamentals and integrate them into your designs. Then, follow up with your clients a few months after launch to see how they’re doing in the search engines. After you’ve got months of SEO background, practice, and follow-up under your belt, go ahead and hang out the shingle for your SEO work.

We have a feeling that once you have a solid understanding of search engine–friendly design and are integrating SEO best practices into your web development, it won’t just be an add-on, it will be a principle applied to all your projects. With this important capability in your portfolio, you’ll have a better chance of landing the projects you want, and heck, we won’t blame you if you raise your rates a bit.

Challenge: A Short-Term Project SEO is a long-term effort. It requires months if not years of ongoing work. Most web development projects, however, are structured to last only through site launch and perhaps a short support period—not long enough for the type of holistic SEO approach we advocate. Most SEO contracts have a term of 3–12 months, and if you’re really confident about your SEO skill set, you’ll want to push for an ongoing contract, too. Remember that the added value of your SEO services can’t possibly be known until the website has been up for several months.

Challenge: A Change of Perspective You’re a web designer, which means you probably know a little something about graphic design, information architecture, usability, “look and feel,” and techie back-end development. This is great news because file-naming conventions, choice of site architecture, and scripting and page structure choices all play a part in the search engine friendliness of a site. However, your skill set may or may not include writing and marketing strategy, and your relationship with your client may not go there on a regular basis. If you’re not a natural wordsmith or strategist, you’ll need to update your tool belt or find a partner who can complement your skills.

Blogger

Blogger

In recent years, weblogs have grown from a band of sharp-tongued outlaws to the darlings of online marketing. From Stonyfield Farm Yogurt to the Republican National Committee, it seems that everyone has a blog, or two, these days. Whether you are an individual out to bring in an income through running ads on your site or a large business with a blog on the site as a way to create relationships with potential clients, you are today’s Big Thing on the Internet. Naturally, the major search engines should be catering to your every need. But you make it plenty hard for them! Your site lives and dies by content that changes every day, so it’s difficult for search engines—which are also trying to index the entire rest of the Web, too—to keep up. Blog-specific search works differently from standard search. Instead of going out and wandering through the zillions of web pages on the Internet every day, blog search engines sit back and watch for changes that come in through the “wires.” This Blogger.

All the major search engines integrate blog postings into their search results, but the blogosphere, a common nickname for the world of blogs, is vast and wide, so you’ll still need to be very aware of blog-specific search sites. You can find links to current biggies and up-and-comers on the companion website.

Advantage: A Link-Friendly Culture Showing up on the blog-specific search engines isn’t going to get you very far on its own. Blogs are part of a very special subculture on the Internet, and you need to tap into that subculture to gain visibility. Blogs need incoming and outgoing links—lots and lots of them—to succeed. But, lucky for you, no other sector of today’s Web is as link-happy as the blogosphere.

The blogosphere is a very social place. Even if you usually cross to the other side of the street to avoid chatting with a neighbor in the “real world,” you need to force yourself to be a much more gregarious animal online. Time-consuming as it may be, reading other blogs is one of the best ways to connect yourself to a community, and ultimately build links and visibility for your own blog.

Challenge: Minding Your Manners Looking for links from other blogs? The blogosphere is nothing if not socially complicated. It has all the affinities, grudges, schisms, feuds, accusations, and drama of a family reunion, without nearly as much barbecue sauce. Your intentions are good. All you want is a little love! But break etiquette, and you could be mercilessly flamed (assaulted by messages that are the electronic equivalent of a slap in the face), your comments removed, and your membership downgraded. Or, maybe worst of all, you could simply be ignored. You’ll focus not just on gaining links, but on making friends, sharing your thoughts in venues beyond your own site… in short, really participating in the blogosphere. And if you care at all about your online reputation, one thing you must never do when visiting other blogs is leave a spam comment, saying nothing more than “Visit my blog!” Bloggers are merciless in their punishment of etiquette-breaking behavior such as this.

Challenge: Optimizing Every Post Since your site probably doesn’t have a traditional site map, with sections, subsections, and conversion pages, you won’t have traditional landing pages to focus your SEO attentions on. Instead, you will have to put your time into making every post a better place for searchers to land. All of the SEO rules we lay out in this book for landing pages—rules like including keywords throughout text, writing great titles, and using search engine–readable HTML text—should become part of your every post.

Does it go without saying that you are going to need to update your blog very, very frequently? We sure hope so. Since your whole existence as a blogger is about writing excellent content, you’re already well on your way to search-friendly site optimization.

Challenge: Domain Considerations These days, it’s easy to create a blog that shows up within your website domain. But maybe you started your blog a couple years ago, and it’s currently living on a free hosting domain like biotech-now.blog-mega-service.com, miles away from your company’s primary domain. Ouch. You’ve got some thinking to do: Bite the bullet and move the blog now, or keep it as is and try to leverage it from where it stands? There’s no simple answer: Moving domains is always disruptive to search presence. But change comes with the territory for you bloggers, and any commitment to improving your traffic is a change for the better.

Advantage: A Venue for Personal Touch Any salesperson will tell you that making a sale is about trust. If you are trying to sell something through your blog, you have a great opportunity to give your audience a chance to get to know and trust you. Aaron Wall of www.seobook.com is both a blogger and expert search marketer. His blog is one way that potential customers find and purchase his e-book. But it’s also a comprehensive, information-rich site that both helps others and bolsters his reputation in the industry. His advice to bloggers getting started and looking for SEO strategies: “Learn your community well, find and use your real voice, and link out early and often.”

51 SEO Blog Tips For Everyone

51 SEO Tips That Everyone use on daily basis

1. Keyword Research
2. Use the google keyword tool
3. Isolate core tems
4. Isolate long-tail terms
5. Determine KEI value of all terms
6. Determine a subset of terms to isolate for SEO campaign
7. Determine how your website initially ranks for selected keywords (I use the Firefox extension Rank Checker)
8. Determine who your top 5 competitors are for each keyword (top 5 results in a Google search)
9. Find out what sites link to your competitors (Yahoo! Site Explorer is great for this)
10. Try to get the sites that link to your competitors to link to your site
11. Use selected keywords in the title tag
12. Do not flood the title tag with your selected keywords
13. Use selected keywords in the description tag
14. Do not flood the description tag with your selected keywords
15. Use selected keywords in the keyword tag
16. Do not flood the keyword tag with your selected keywords
17. Do not use a bunch of keywords that pertain to your site but do not appear on your site in your keyword tag
18. Use a selected keyword in the h1 tag
19. Use search engine friendly URLs
20. Utilize the image ALT tag
21. Include a sitemap.xml file in your site root and submit it to the major search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo!)
22. Include a robots.txt file in your site root
23. Shoot for a keyword density of 3-4%
24. Try to make your selected keywords prominent in the body text
25. Use your keywords frequently, yet methodically
26. Use semantically related keywords in your body text
27. Manually submit your website to the Major Search Engines and at least a Use
28. Manually submit your website to industry-relevant directories in the proper category
29. Write engaging, unique and fresh articles on subjects you are interested in and that relate to your website
30. Submit your articles to article directories
31. Post your articles to your blog
32. If you don't have a blog, create a blog
33. Post your articles to Facebook
34. Use Twitter to tweet that you posted a new article on your blog and Facebook
35. Use social bookmarking sites to create inbound links to your website
36. Create press releases regarding new products or changes to your business
37. Submit these press releases to places like pr.com, przoom.com
38. Engage in social media
39. Read blogs
40. Comment on the blogs you read only if it adds to the discussion
41. Do not use keywords in the "Name" field
42. Use your name in the "name" field
43. Do not register and use forums solely to get a backlink in the signature
44. Learn more about your business and your industry everyday
45. Share what you learn with other people via Twitter, Facebook etc
46. Use Google Analytics to track the visitors who go to your site
47. Discover what keywords they use to reach your site
48. Use Google webmaster's tools to discover even more ways people are finding your website
49. Use a "Share" button on your articles and blog posts
50. Use the new facebook connect feature – it just works
51. Write informative content – try and be helpful!

Source : SmashBlogTips

Keyword Prominence, Density, Proximity and Frequency

Keyword Prominence, Density, Proximity and Frequency

Search Engine Optimize works with different type of factors, Keyword is one of the important factor which affects your ranking and position in the SERP, using a proper keyword in a proper prominence, density, proximity and frequency is very important or else your website may be declared as a SPAM, this will result in the form of website indexability issues. Using a proper method while creating a web page can prevent this kind of issues, but you must be careful!, after all this is your website life and indexing question icon wink Keyword Prominence, Density, Proximity and Frequency SEO Tips .

You must be cautious while writing a post or creating web page, you need to obey and follow some rules or else you will have to bear the consequences. If you don’t want your website to be get penalized by search engines use this below SEO tips.on page SEO Keyword Prominence, Density, Proximity and Frequency SEO Tips

Your purpose should be keyword-focused content which is intelligent approach. This text must be fully optimized for particular keywords. Further you’ll find the principles of “focused optimization”. Such content reads naturally as well but has higher chance of success.

Keyword Prominence :

Keyword Prominence is an important thing in the on-page optimization, prominence is a measure of keyword importance that indicates how close a keyword is to the beginning of the analyzed page area. If a word is used at the starting of the title, headings, or close to the beginning of the visible text of the page, it is considered more important than other words. Keyword prominence is calculated separately for each important page area.

Let us take an example as the key phrase is “SEO Tips” and look at the below examples of possible titles we could give to our pages:

1. Tips for SEO – Google SEO Guide
2. SEO tips – Google SEO Guide

See the above two examples, there you can find the different keyword prominence like…

In the first sentence the KP should be 70%, where as in the second section the prominence should be 100%. So i hope now you understand the concept.. now let’s move to the Keyword density.

Keyword density / Keyword Weight:

These two parameters are used as synonyms, but there is a slight mathematical difference is there between them. The results on the search engine result page (SERP) are ranked in part based on the percentage of words on a page that are similar to the words used in the query.

What is Keyword Stuffing ? :

Artificial inflation of keyword density is called as Keyword Stuffing and it will be considered as SPAM by all search engines.

How to Calculate the Keyword Density :

Density is calculated as the several words in the key phrase multiplied by frequency and divided by the total number of words (including with the keyword), As the proportion of the keywords to all words becomes larger.

Let us take an example that you are optimizing a page for “ Search Engine Optimization Tips “.

1. Solvater.com : Search Engine Optimization Tips
2. Solvater.com is a community blog for webmasters to help in Search Engine Optimization tips.

In the above examples, first title is more profitable than the second one, because in the first title approaches 70% density where as in the second one it is just 40%. The recommended density for body text is 3-7% for each keyword you optimize for that page, remember that each page should generally be optimized for no more than three keywords or phrases ( excluding stop words).

Keyword Frequency :

Frequency is the number of times your keyword is used in the analyzed area of a page. It does not depend on the total number of words on your web page, it’s an absolute count. If you repeat your key phrase 5 times, your frequency will be 5, whether your page has 5,000 words or only these keywords 5 times and nothing more.

Search engines use frequency as another measure of keyword importance. Pages with more keywords will be rated as more relevant results, but using more keywords will be considered as keyword stuffing.

Keyword Proximity :

Keyword proximity refers to how close keywords that make up your key phrase are to each other, try to put your keywords as close together as possible and make sure your sentences are clear. The logic of the search engine is such that if the words follow each other as they are typed in the search box, chances are these words are relevant.

If they all appear in one paragraph, then the page is possibly relevant. The use of this is perhaps most obvious with Google due to the way they usually give a description.

You have learned about ” what is Keyword Prominence, Density, Proximity and Frequency ?“. If you have any questions, suggestions or doubts please let me know in the comments section below.

Source : Google - solvater.com

Best SEO strategies

The best On-Page SEO Strategies:

01. Keyword Optimization

02. Internal Linking

03. Content Creation

04. Writing For Others

05. URl Rewrite

06. Site Optimization

07. Meta Data

The best Off-Page SEO Strategies:

01. Blog Commenting

02. Social Bookmarking Sites

03. Create Free Blogs

04. Use free forums

05. Use Free Wiki Creation sites

06. Use Free Press Releases

07. Guest Blogging

08. Use Dofollow Article Directories

09. Use Top 10 Dofollow Forums

10. Blog Post Interlinking

This are the basic SEO Strategies.. Stay Turned for More Advanced SEO Strategies..

Effective Internet Marketing SEO Strategies

If you want to achieve online success, you should be able to apply different internet marketing SEO strategies that are most suitable for your line of business. Your primary goal is to obtain traffic to your website and you can do this through employing search engine optimization or SEO. SEO is a process that helps you gain better position in search engine rankings. This is important because the higher your ranking is, the greater the chances for increased website traffic.

Some of the most common and effective internet marketing SEO strategies include key factors such as title tags, keyword Meta tag, description Meta tag, and body content. Title tags should include an appropriate keyword, which is advisable to be placed as close to the start of the title as possible. Keyword Meta tag includes a minimum of 3 keywords separated by a comma. Your main keyword should be placed first followed by the less important keywords. However, every keyword should be relevant to the entire content of your article.

Description Meta tag, on the other hand, is similar to title tags; however, the keyword is followed by an overview of the page content. Say, if your topic keyword is about SEO, you should have a title tag such as “Learn SEO techniques” followed by a short description “to increase online profits.”

Finally, the body content should be written with keywords surrounding the entire content. The body content should encompass the keywords from the beginning until the end of the article. Thus, you should learn to write your content based on the view of your readers and apply your marketing strategies where they are appropriate.

Top SEO Resources

The sheer number of resources available on search engine optimization can be overwhelming. There are a ton of sites, tools, and conferences to choose from and it can be confusing and somewhat scary. I’ve compiled a list of good, credible resources here in order to steer you in the right direction and so you don’t end up getting some bad advice.

Information:
These are sites that have general information on search engine optimization and search engines. They offer news, information, and search engine optimization tips.

Search Engine Watch

Marketing Terms – This dictionary will help you understand all of the search engine terms you come across.

Search Engine Relationship Chart – This chart shows you which search engines are connected to each other so you know what search engines to submit your site to and optimize for.

Search Engines – Tips on search engine optimization and promotion.

Google SEO Guidelines – Google’s brief information on search engine optimization.

SEO Beginners Guide – Rand Fishkin writes a detailed guide on search engine optimization for beginners. It is a long read, but well worth it.

ISEDB

Search Engine Guide

Pandia

SEO Chat

Search Engine Colossus – This is a directory of all of the search engines in the world. If you are looking to target other countries, it is important to get familiar with the search engines in that country.

Thread Watch

Tools:
Here is a list of tools that will be useful if you are looking to do search engine optimization. Some of the tools give you insight on search terms and others give you an idea of how well optimized your site is. These tools are great for research or for improving the optimization of your website.

SEO ToolSet

GoogSpy – If you are interested in finding out what search terms your competition is ranked for or is adverting on, then this site will be a great tool for you.

SEOMOZ’s Tools

Wordtracker – This is a keyword research tool that tells you the popularity of certain keywords across the major search engines. It also gives you suggestions on other related terms that are high and low in traffic.

Search Term Suggestion – This tool comes directly from Yahoo and it gives you an idea on how popular search terms are. This gives you good input on what terms you want your site to be optimized for. Be careful because the total number does not mean that a high ranking for that keyword will get you that amount of traffic.

Meta Tag Analyzer

Google Toolbar – If you want to find out your site’s Google PageRank you will need to install this toolbar. It will show you your PageRank, but be careful because it is not frequently updated.

Marketleap Link Popularity Checker – This link popularity checker will show how many sites link to you for each search engine. It can also show you the number of sites that link to your competitors. They also have a neat feature that shows the growth or decline in your link popularity over time.

Digital Point SEO Tools

SEO Chat Tools/

We Build Pages SEO Tools

Blogs:
You may want to pay attention to blogs if you are looking to keep up with daily search engine news, information, and the latest search engine optimization tips. Blogs provide a constant update of news and information about the latest ideas. This space is constantly changing, so it’s important to stay current with what is going on.
SEOMOZ

Search Engine Blog

TopRank

Search Engine Roundtable – This is one of the more unique blogs out there. There are search engine conferences that go on every couple months and they write about each session. It’s like being at the conference and listening to the speakers.

Search Engine Watch Blog

SEO Book

Matt Cutts – This is the blog by one of Google’s engineers. He is their most popular engineer and writes about Google, search engine optimization, and gadgets.

Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Lowdown

John Battelle’s Search Blog

Google – Blog News Channel

Traffick

SEO by the Sea

Cameron Olthuis

Google Blogoscoped – Covers the ins and outs of Google. Sometimes they have information about Google before it is released to the general public. There are also interviews with Google employees.

Search Engine Forums:
Forums are a great resource if you need help, input, or are just looking for information on search engine optimization. You post your questions and can expect a response from other people with their thoughts. This is great for finding information and getting help.

Search Engine Forum

High Rankings Forum

I Help You Forum

Webmaster World – Unlike most of the search engine forums, this is a paid forum and you have to pay yearly fees to be part of it. There are thousands of members and they discuss search engine optimization, news, tips, and general Internet-related topics.

Search Guild

SEO Chat Forum

Digital Point Forum

Cre8asite Forum

Search Engine Watch Forum
Conferences are a great way to take your learning to the next level and get deeper into the industry. Conferences allow you to listen to experts in the field, meet them in person, and talk to people from the major search engines.

Search Engine Strategies – They hold conferences every couple months all over the world. They have sessions for beginners and you can also meet people from the major search engines.

PubCon – This is a search engine related conference that covers everything from general information to search engine optimization tips. They have conferences every couple months and the price is cheaper than Search Engine Strategies. The downfall is that the conference is smaller with less attendees.