THE ABCs OF SEO
(Search Engine Optimization)
by Joanne Glasspoole
If you want to be found in the search engines, it is important that you add search engine optimization to your action list. In a nutshell, search engine optimization–or SEO for short–is the process of making your web pages “search engine friendly.”
SEO is a relatively new marketing industry. Although there are many purported experts, most of us who call ourselves SEO specialists are learning. The search engines are constantly influx, so SEO techniques that worked yesterday may not necessarily work tomorrow. As a result, it is exceedingly important to keep up with the fervent pace of the Internet, and the search engines in particular.
One of the frustrations of search engine placement is that your rankings are constantly fluctuating. The key to a successful search engine optimization campaign is creativity, perseverance and practice, practice, practice. Do not try to fool the search engines by “tricking” them with unsavory techniques (e.g., keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text) because you will risk having your web site lose favor with the search engines, or worse, getting banned altogether.
If you are developing a new web site or redesigning an old one, now is a good time to think about search engine optimization. This article will describe the process of optimizing your web pages for the search engines, as well as highlight some of the other components that are important for a successful search engine marketing campaign.
WRITING KEYWORD-RICH WEB COPY
I’m sure you’ve heard the old clich : Content is king. Well, you know what, it is! Although the Internet is graphic-rich, it is a text-based medium. Information is what your visitors are seeking. If you web site doesn’t present the information they want, don’t forget your competitor’s web site is only one mouse click away.
Search engines need copy to know what your web site’s theme is and how your site should be indexed in their directory. If your home page consists solely of a Flash movie or an image map, there will be nothing for the search engines to index. Flash is cool, but it is not so cool when your web site doesn’t come up in search engine results.
So, how do you write keyword-rich copy?
The first thing you need to do is identify the keyword phrases that are important and relevant to your web site. For instance, how would you describe your company, products and services? More importantly, how would your visitors describe your company, products and services? Although the answer may seem like a no-brainer, it really isn’t, because you need to think outside of the box. You need to get into your visitor’s head and think like your visitor. What search terms would they use to find your web site?
A good place to start your keyword research is by looking at your log files. What search terms are your visitors using to find you? Armed with this information, you can begin researching the popularity of those terms. Researching your keywords is a very important task, because if you target the wrong terms, your traffic will suffer. Although your site may rank number one for some obscure term, if no one is searching for that term, your site will not be found in the search engines.
There are a number of handy tools available online to help you begin building your list of relevant keywords. Overture (formerly Goto.com) offers a Search Term Suggestion Tool on its web site that will not only tell you how many times a particular keyword phrase was queried in the past month, it’ll also present you with a list of alternative terms to consider for your search engine optimization campaign. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
In addition to utilizing keyword suggestion tools to research your keywords, I highly recommend brainstorming keywords with your co-workers, employees, friends and family members. Better yet, ask your clients and customers what terms they would use to search for your web site. Brainstorming keywords will teach you a lot about how others think and use the Internet to find information.
Once you have identified your keywords, you will need to integrate them into the body of your web page. Your sentences need to be intelligible and grammatically correct. Don’t forget: Your web copy will be read by human beings, as well as the search engines. If your web copy doesn’t make sense, your visitors will hit their back button never to return again. Bad web copy will defeat the whole purpose of your search engine optimization campaign.
WRITING YOUR META TAGS
The most important tag in the header section of your web page is the title tag. The title tag is displayed in the bar at the top of your browser window–above the toolbar. Many webmasters do not use the title tag properly. For example, their page will be titled “Home” or “Welcome,” or worse yet “untitled,” because they don’t include a title at all. The search engines place a lot of relevance on the words contained within the title tag, so be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases when writing your title tag. This tag is generally limited to 60 characters, so choose your words with care.
The next important tag in the header section is the description meta tag. This tag is used to describe your web page. Like the title tag, many of the search engines will extrapolate this information to summarize your web site. Again, be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases.
The third and least important tag in the header section is the keywords meta tag. Because of abuse by unscrupulous webmasters, the keywords tag is ignored by many of the search engines. Even so, some do use it, so it doesn’t hurt to include it. Like your title and description tag, choose your keywords carefully. Do not include keywords that are not included in the body of your web copy or irrelevant to the theme of your site.
LINK POPULARITY
Much is said about link popularity, but what is it exactly?
A few years ago, people were joining “link farms” to increase their link popularity, but today that is frowned upon and can actually be detrimental to your quest for higher rankings in the search engines. Now the emphasis is more on the quality of the links pointing to your web site versus the quantity.
Many of the major search engines use link popularity to gauge the relevancy of your site in its search results. Plus, links are what makes the web go-round. Many webmasters have the notion that links are bad because they are sending visitors off of their web site. Although this is true, links to and from web sites that complement yours helps to build credibility and sets the stage for making your web site an authority in your field.
Much is written about the importance of getting links from directories like Yahoo!, Looksmart and the Open Directory Project, because they are reviewed by human beings. If you want a link in the first two, however, it will cost you money. A listing in Yahoo! and Looksmart is considered “paid inclusion.” Your marketing dollars will be well spent, though, because listings here will not only generate increased traffic, it will add greatly to your web site’s link popularity.
SUBMITTING TO THE SEARCH ENGINES
Once your web page is fully optimized, it is time to submit it to the search engines. Although there are hundreds of search engines on the Internet, only a handful are truly important. Recent statistics show the top three search engines as:
#1 MSN
#2 Yahoo!
#3 Google
Although there are automated services that promise to get you listed on thousands of search engines, it is recommended that you manually submit your site to the top search engines. Some of the search engines view automated submissions as spam and will not list your site. Others put a higher priority on manual submissions. And others–such as Inktomi–required an annual fee to list your site. It can take weeks (sometimes even months!) to get listed, so again, be patient. The search engines are important to the success of your web site, so treat them with the respect they deserve. Most of all, do not over-submit!
For more information about search engine submissions, request a copy of my article “Web Site Promotion 101″ at mailto:sitepromotion101@sendfree.com
TRAFFIC REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Once you have allowed an appropriate amount of time to lapse (I usually wait six weeks), it is time to generate some reports to confirm the success of your search engine optimization campaign. Search engine positioning reports provide a wealth of information, such as your site’s position in the major search engines, how you rank on your targeted keyword terms and phrases, which sites rank above and below you, where you’ve declined in rankings, and so on.
In addition to your search engine positioning reports, be sure to regularly check your traffic logs. Is your traffic increasing? Are people finding your site with the search terms you targeted? Which of the search engines are referring visitors to your site?
CASE STUDY OF GRIEF LOSS & RECOVERY
In October 2001, my web site, Grief Loss & Recovery (http://www.grieflossrecovery.com), was averaging 98 visitors a day and 573 page views. Reviewing my traffic logs, I noted that the most popular search term for my site was “grief poems,” so I decided to optimize my site for that phrase.
Since October, my traffic has steadily climbed the charts.
In March 2002, my daily unique visitors averaged 325 and my page views 1962, an increase of 69 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
With regard to my rankings in the search engines, they have also improved considerably. For example, for the search phrase “grief poems” in Google, my site ranks number one out of 102,000 results; and for the search term “grief,” my site ranks 15 out of 1,690,000.
As for traffic referred by the search engines, Google far exceeds all other search engines in driving traffic to my site with 2,953 referrals in March, followed by Yahoo at 1,428. (In comparison, my October 2001 numbers showed Yahoo referring 535 visitors and Google 423.)
All-in-all, I am pleased with the results of my first attempt at optimizing Grief Loss & Recovery and am beginning to note similar results with some of the other web sites I have recently optimized.
When playing the search engine optimization game, patience is important, because results do not happen overnight.
CONCLUSION
To be competitive online, your web site needs to be search engine friendly. Search engine optimization is a function of Internet marketing and is the most cost-effective means of marketing to your target audience. With an estimated 84 percent of web users turning to the search engines to find information online, it is important that your site rank within the top 30 results if you want to be found. A successful search engine optimization campaign will not only boost your rankings in the search engines, it will bring qualified customers and prospects to your web site who are already on the web searching for your products and services.
For more information about search engine optimization and positioning, visit:
Search Engine Watch
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Search Engine World
http://www.searchengineworld.com/index.htm
Academy of Web Specialists
http://www.academywebspecialists.com/
Spider Food
http://www.spider-food.net/
Plus be sure to subscribe to:
Adventive I-Search
http://www.adventive.com/lists/isearch/summary.html
_______________________
Copyright 2002 by Joanne Glasspoole. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joanne Glasspoole is the editor/publisher of CYBER QUEST. Each issue is jam packed with original reports, news briefs, cool Webmaster tools, and more. To subscribe, send email to Majordomo@lists.kdv.com with “subscribe cyberquest” in the body of your message. Visit Joanne’s web site at http://www.glasspoole.com

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Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.

Search Engine Optimization means trying to get more visitors to see your website. Working on sites such as Poetseers and Write Spirit I have learnt a few things through trial and error. I am not a professional SEO but I have no products to sell these are my suggestions on things that have worked for me.

1. Choose titles words carefully. E.g a page “love” is unlikely to get any traffic from Google, there is too much competition. Creating a page called “Rumi love poems” has a much better chance of getting traffic because it is more specific

2. Getting External Links from other sites. This is very helpful for the website. It boosts its page rank. However Google is clever; it rates the quality of links. 100 links from sites who only have listings of link pages (a link farm) is pretty much useless. Getting a link in the middle of text from a good quality website with high PR is the most useful.

3. The link should be generally from related sites. A poetry site needs links from other sites. A link from Bob’s Bingo is not much use.

4. Links should be natural it is not good to get 100 LINKS at once. Google thinks you’ve cheated. It should be a gradual process of e.g 1 a week or 1 a month. Generally buying links is not recommended, Google hates things that look like cheating. At worst your site may begin to attract penalties.

5. Links to the home page is best, but links within the site are still good.

6. Add unique content on a regular basis. This is very important and valuable to a website. It is also useful to add fresh material to the home page. There’s no short cut to getting good rankings, at the end of the day you do need to have good material

7. Pages benefit from having relevant external links. E.g. A page about the poetry of Sri Aurobindo would benefit from having links to other sites about Sri Aurobindo. It is best to link to established sites with high PR (Page Rank). Linking to sites with PR = 0 is not good.

There are many rules and suggestion but the most important thing is that if your site has good unique content then it will do well, because people will be inspired to link to it without you asking. It is hard to get high rankings artificially and impossible to get high rankings overnight, it is a gradual process.

About the author:

Richard is an economics teacher in Oxford and works on various websites such as Sri Chinmoy Songs Richard is a member of the Oxford Sri Chinmoy Centre and is also a good UK cyclist.

TechTags Plugin [ internet marketing | seo | search engine optimization | web site optimization | internetoutfitter ]

Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.

“We (the British and Americans) are two countries separated by a common language.”
G.B. Shaw

There is a patina of friendly competition that spans the north Atlantic, and misunderstandings can be humorous and worthy of retelling many times over a whiskey. As an American replied when asked, by an Englishman, why he pronounced words in such a curious way , he said perhaps we went to different schools .

Well, different schools it may be, but language is changing on both sides of the Atlantic, and anyone with a website that wants to take advantage of two of the biggest markets in online business, should know exactly when search engines find it important.

It was Noah Webster who changed many words to their present form. Slowly he Americanised spelling. He chose s over c in words like defence; he changed the re to er in words like centre; changed traveller to traveler, and although at first he kept the u in words like colour or favour, he changed them in later editions of his dictionary.

So what are the ramifications of for SEO.

Let us take as an example www.opexhosting.com.

OPEX are a provider of call centre solutions in the UK, so on the face of it would use key phrases like call centre, or contact centre, with the ‘er’ ending as they are spelled in the UK.

It is not, however, quite that simple.

A tool that says it provides results depending on what market you are aiming at is the yahoo search marketing keyword tool (Overture).

If I type in call centre in the section designed to exhibit UK results, I find that the UK spelling does not come up at all in the singular spelling of the word. It seems that the UK spelling of call centre has dropped from the radar entirely.

Are we getting confused about spelling in old blighty? It wouldn t be the first time. We might drive 60 miles, but then run 100 metres, a hot day can be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but it is cold at sub zero degrees centigrade, cars are filled in Litres, but a car that does 50 miles to the gallon is doing its bit to save the planet.

Not giving in I went back to my trusty keyword tool and tried again with catalogue , and it came back with results spelled catalog .

Smelling a rat I popped across to the overture bid tool, and found that the bids were exactly the same for the US and UK spellings. It seems that yahoo search marketing (or what used to be overture) bundles US and UK spellings in the same pot. I was not going to get any meaningful data here.

I then took a look at the keyword suggestion tool at wordtracker.com which finally gave me some recognisable results. Using its own database of searched for terms, It told me that 570 people per day were searching for call center (US) and 92 were looking for a call centre (UK). So UK English is, most probably, still being used in England.

But how do search engines react to the different spellings?

Google does take notice. If we type Contact centre into Google we get different results to contact center , as we do for color and colour , so Google does not just bundle the results into one big lump.

How do the results differ? Well for a start in the US version of Google, which seems to get from 70% to 80% of Google traffic even in the UK, call center gets 947,000,000 results, and call centre gets 157,000,000, which is a very similar ratio to the wordtracker results at around 6 to 1 US to UK spellings.

If we look at google.co.uk results are, of course, biased more towards UK results, including spelling. But with many UK websites reporting only 25% to 30% of Google traffic coming from the UK version its search engine, we find ourselves in a quandary.

If we do a search on call centres , in Google s US version, using the English spelling, the number two slot is a website that does not have the UK version of the word in it.

Put simply.

If you are an American or an English site, with any keywords that require different spellings for each side of the pond, and you want to either capture the other market or even, in the case of UK sites, be sure of covering all angles in your own market, best optimise for both.

So how do we do that.

One way is to maintain a .co.uk (or .com.au etc) and a .com site. This risks tripping over Google s duplicate content algorithm made popular in the jagger update, and marketing efforts, like link building, would have to be for two separate sites.

Another possibility is to use both UK and US spelling in the same site content. But how does this look in a site that is trying to tell its visitors that they are an eloquent business proposition. Well, it is possible to put alternative spellings into things like meta tags and image alts. It s perfectly legal, although Noah Webster might turn in his grave.

Dominic Reid is a Search engine optimization analyst who runs OpenG SEO.

TechTags Plugin [ internet marketing | seo | search engine optimization | web site optimization | internetoutfitter ]

Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.