Top Twelve Real Estate SEO Tips
Roger SEO Grant asked:
Top Twelve Real Estate SEO Tips
Getting to the top of search engine results pages is such a hard thing to achieve these days and even more so for a realtor.
Do a simple search such as “real estate for sale Orlando” for example and you will be distressed to learn that there are over Twenty Four Million pages on the internet competing for top ten positions in the SERPS (search engine result pages)!
This article is provided so you will find the real secrets of search engine ranking.
It is specifically targeted at Google but will also work just as well for Yahoo.com and Bing.com.
Follow these ten techniques faithfully and you will see dramatic results in your position over time for specific key phrases that can convert for your real estate business:
1) Key Phrase Research
Before you do anything else you need to know what people are really typing when they do a search to find real estate and property for sale in your area.
To find out you need to spend several hours looking through the data provided by Google , Overture (Yahoo) and Bing.
To discover these gems you will need to use such tools as there are available like the Google External Key Phrase Suggestion Tool and Wordtracker.
I’ll do an in depth guide how to use these tools and determine what you really must know in a future post…
2) The Importance of Key Words in the Web Page Title
Once you know which key words and phrases people are really typing then you should create pages that match those searches and add the phrase itself in the title tag of the web page html coding.
Place your title text in between the two title delimiters:
WHATEVER PHRASE & some other words
3) Meta Tags & Descriptions
In the non visible part of the html page there are elements called the “meta tags” where you may add description and key words relating to the particular page in question.
Notice I said to the page and not to the site?
It is important to always remember that what you are trying to achieve is a higher “page rank” not a higher “site rank”…
Simply use your key phrase that is the target of your effort for the particular page judiciously in the “header” part of the html code for the page i.e. in between the part that starts “” and ends “”.
Here you will put two tags:
4) Image Alt Tags
Whenever you add an image to a web page you have the opportunity to add some text in what is known as the “alt tag” like:
5) Key Word Density
Try and achieve a “key word density” of around 1.6% to 2.8% in the visible part of the web page.
To achieve that simply divide the total number of words by the times you need to appear with your key phrase.
( Times Your Phrase Appears / Number of Words ) x 100 = KWD
E.G. Key phrase appears 7 times in a page of 498 words therefore your KWD is calculated:
4/498 = 0.014 then 0.014 x 100 = 1.4 so KWD = 1.4%
6) Key Phrases in URLs
Try to use the phrase itself as part of the Url.
Example:
If the phrase is “real estate listings New Haven CO” then either put the page in a directory called ” real-estate-listings-New-Haven-CO ” and call the page “index.html” or call the page ” real-estate-listings-New-Haven-CO.html”
Alternatively you could also consider buying the domain ” real-estate-listings-New-Haven-CO.com “.
7) Maximize the Value of the First Link
Google reads your webpage like an English speaking human i.e. top to bottom and right to left.
The most important link to Google (the one it gives the most weight to) is the first link on the left at the top.
Many people make the mistake of making this link to “index.html” or similar with the anchor text “home”.
For a realtor the word home can work but better to replace this with your key phrase and make the link to “/” and not to “index.html” (see the next tip!).
8)Avoid Duplicate Content
Google will actually penalize your site for duplicate content.
The problem is that Google cannot tell the difference between a web page at “http://www.yourdomain.com/” and “http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html” and, although they are in fact the same thing, it sees them as two different pages but with the exact same content…
For this reason it is very important not to fall into the “index.html” trap!
9) The Importance of a Good Navigational Hierarchy
Google is very much for making the user experience the best that it can be and for this reason loves a site that is easy for the user to navigate.
To ensure that your site benefits from this preference you need to make the “family tree” of your site very intuitive to use by creating and using sub categories where appropriate and by then ensuring that the top(s) of each tree have easy to follow links that descend into those subcategories.
Obviously the top of the tree should begin on your index.html page.
Create then a “site map” of all your pages (there are many tools available for free to do this like this one http://submitgooglesitemap.com/) and submit this site map to Google at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
10) Competitive Key Phrase SERPS Analysis
You need to understand that the top ten sites that appear in Google’s results do so for a reason (or in reality for several reasons) and that it is because they best fit the filtration system applied by Google known technically as the “algorithm“.
Google applies logic and a convoluted recipe that dates back to its original patent over ten years ago where it scores a page or “ranks” a page based on several criteria (many of which are not overtly disclosed!).
The key to your success is in analysing the results that do exists and reverse engineering the possible “whys?” using diligent research to discover what evidence there exists on the web that could show the “hows” of a particular SERP result…
The most important thing is to know (and to understand) what your competitors are doing to achieve high rankings.
Again there is not enough space here to show all the techniques necessary here but essentially you need to work out what back links the page enjoys and then to reproduce the same quantity and quality of those back links to your own site and then add some more…
11) Good Quality Back links
Perhaps the most important part of SEO is in the development of good quality one way links or “votes” pointing to your web pages.
This is one of the most time consuming elements of search engine optimization as it requires literally thousands of these back links if you really want to succeed and finding thousands of site owners willing to link to you without you offering to link back to them is a very difficult thing to achieve as you can imagine.
Not only do you need to get several of them they also need to come from reputable places and getting the wrong kind of back link can actually lead to getting your site blacklisted in Google if you are not careful.
Do not be tempted to fall for the many offers to “submit your site to x thousand directories” or similar as more often than not you will end up with the wrong links from, very much, the wrong neighbourhood.
The key is to do it yourself or to employ a search engine optimization specialist who knows what they are doing. What you cannot afford to do though is ignore it as it is the area of SEO that can and will make the most difference.
12) The Importance of Video and Virtual Tours for Real Estate SEO Purposes
Making videos and submitting them to the right places can make a huge impact both short and long term to the success of your real estate business.
The success of video sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion to name but two shows just how popular video on the web is becoming. More and more people are expecting realtors to have video and virtual tours on their property listing pages…
The good news from an SEO standpoint is that there are three wonderful benefits of this and they are:
a) Virtual tours really do help to sell listings and can make the difference between buying an MLS listed property through your business or someone else’s..
b) The back link “votes” you can get from the more popular video portals is tremendous and, simply put, the more video/virtual tours you create and submit the more votes you can get…
c) Google, having paid $1.6Bn for YouTube is actively seeking many ways of incorporating video into its search results and more and more we are seeing videos and virtual tours on the first three pages of results.
(By the way if you aren’t on the first three pages of results you may as well forget it!)
Following these simple yet time consuming techniques will allow you to compete strongly with most of your competitors as long as they are not actively employing the services of a competent SEO specialist (most don’t) and, thus, you should be able to rank highly in time.
Yes it does take time I am afraid but with the correct strategies you can and will beat your competitors to those elusive inquiries and ultimately to sell more real estate through your web site.
Unfortunately there is no magic wand or silver bullet to achieving real estate search engine optimization but careful research and due diligence will and does prevail time and time again allowing you to seriously generate more inquiries and more sales.
Top Twelve Real Estate SEO Tips
Getting to the top of search engine results pages is such a hard thing to achieve these days and even more so for a realtor.
Do a simple search such as “real estate for sale Orlando” for example and you will be distressed to learn that there are over Twenty Four Million pages on the internet competing for top ten positions in the SERPS (search engine result pages)!
This article is provided so you will find the real secrets of search engine ranking.
It is specifically targeted at Google but will also work just as well for Yahoo.com and Bing.com.
Follow these ten techniques faithfully and you will see dramatic results in your position over time for specific key phrases that can convert for your real estate business:
1) Key Phrase Research
Before you do anything else you need to know what people are really typing when they do a search to find real estate and property for sale in your area.
To find out you need to spend several hours looking through the data provided by Google , Overture (Yahoo) and Bing.
To discover these gems you will need to use such tools as there are available like the Google External Key Phrase Suggestion Tool and Wordtracker.
I’ll do an in depth guide how to use these tools and determine what you really must know in a future post…
2) The Importance of Key Words in the Web Page Title
Once you know which key words and phrases people are really typing then you should create pages that match those searches and add the phrase itself in the title tag of the web page html coding.
Place your title text in between the two title delimiters:
WHATEVER PHRASE & some other words
3) Meta Tags & Descriptions
In the non visible part of the html page there are elements called the “meta tags” where you may add description and key words relating to the particular page in question.
Notice I said to the page and not to the site?
It is important to always remember that what you are trying to achieve is a higher “page rank” not a higher “site rank”…
Simply use your key phrase that is the target of your effort for the particular page judiciously in the “header” part of the html code for the page i.e. in between the part that starts “” and ends “”.
Here you will put two tags:
4) Image Alt Tags
Whenever you add an image to a web page you have the opportunity to add some text in what is known as the “alt tag” like:
5) Key Word Density
Try and achieve a “key word density” of around 1.6% to 2.8% in the visible part of the web page.
To achieve that simply divide the total number of words by the times you need to appear with your key phrase.
( Times Your Phrase Appears / Number of Words ) x 100 = KWD
E.G. Key phrase appears 7 times in a page of 498 words therefore your KWD is calculated:
4/498 = 0.014 then 0.014 x 100 = 1.4 so KWD = 1.4%
6) Key Phrases in URLs
Try to use the phrase itself as part of the Url.
Example:
If the phrase is “real estate listings New Haven CO” then either put the page in a directory called ” real-estate-listings-New-Haven-CO ” and call the page “index.html” or call the page ” real-estate-listings-New-Haven-CO.html”
Alternatively you could also consider buying the domain ” real-estate-listings-New-Haven-CO.com “.
7) Maximize the Value of the First Link
Google reads your webpage like an English speaking human i.e. top to bottom and right to left.
The most important link to Google (the one it gives the most weight to) is the first link on the left at the top.
Many people make the mistake of making this link to “index.html” or similar with the anchor text “home”.
For a realtor the word home can work but better to replace this with your key phrase and make the link to “/” and not to “index.html” (see the next tip!).
8)Avoid Duplicate Content
Google will actually penalize your site for duplicate content.
The problem is that Google cannot tell the difference between a web page at “http://www.yourdomain.com/” and “http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html” and, although they are in fact the same thing, it sees them as two different pages but with the exact same content…
For this reason it is very important not to fall into the “index.html” trap!
9) The Importance of a Good Navigational Hierarchy
Google is very much for making the user experience the best that it can be and for this reason loves a site that is easy for the user to navigate.
To ensure that your site benefits from this preference you need to make the “family tree” of your site very intuitive to use by creating and using sub categories where appropriate and by then ensuring that the top(s) of each tree have easy to follow links that descend into those subcategories.
Obviously the top of the tree should begin on your index.html page.
Create then a “site map” of all your pages (there are many tools available for free to do this like this one http://submitgooglesitemap.com/) and submit this site map to Google at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
10) Competitive Key Phrase SERPS Analysis
You need to understand that the top ten sites that appear in Google’s results do so for a reason (or in reality for several reasons) and that it is because they best fit the filtration system applied by Google known technically as the “algorithm“.
Google applies logic and a convoluted recipe that dates back to its original patent over ten years ago where it scores a page or “ranks” a page based on several criteria (many of which are not overtly disclosed!).
The key to your success is in analysing the results that do exists and reverse engineering the possible “whys?” using diligent research to discover what evidence there exists on the web that could show the “hows” of a particular SERP result…
The most important thing is to know (and to understand) what your competitors are doing to achieve high rankings.
Again there is not enough space here to show all the techniques necessary here but essentially you need to work out what back links the page enjoys and then to reproduce the same quantity and quality of those back links to your own site and then add some more…
11) Good Quality Back links
Perhaps the most important part of SEO is in the development of good quality one way links or “votes” pointing to your web pages.
This is one of the most time consuming elements of search engine optimization as it requires literally thousands of these back links if you really want to succeed and finding thousands of site owners willing to link to you without you offering to link back to them is a very difficult thing to achieve as you can imagine.
Not only do you need to get several of them they also need to come from reputable places and getting the wrong kind of back link can actually lead to getting your site blacklisted in Google if you are not careful.
Do not be tempted to fall for the many offers to “submit your site to x thousand directories” or similar as more often than not you will end up with the wrong links from, very much, the wrong neighbourhood.
The key is to do it yourself or to employ a search engine optimization specialist who knows what they are doing. What you cannot afford to do though is ignore it as it is the area of SEO that can and will make the most difference.
12) The Importance of Video and Virtual Tours for Real Estate SEO Purposes
Making videos and submitting them to the right places can make a huge impact both short and long term to the success of your real estate business.
The success of video sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion to name but two shows just how popular video on the web is becoming. More and more people are expecting realtors to have video and virtual tours on their property listing pages…
The good news from an SEO standpoint is that there are three wonderful benefits of this and they are:
a) Virtual tours really do help to sell listings and can make the difference between buying an MLS listed property through your business or someone else’s..
b) The back link “votes” you can get from the more popular video portals is tremendous and, simply put, the more video/virtual tours you create and submit the more votes you can get…
c) Google, having paid $1.6Bn for YouTube is actively seeking many ways of incorporating video into its search results and more and more we are seeing videos and virtual tours on the first three pages of results.
(By the way if you aren’t on the first three pages of results you may as well forget it!)
Following these simple yet time consuming techniques will allow you to compete strongly with most of your competitors as long as they are not actively employing the services of a competent SEO specialist (most don’t) and, thus, you should be able to rank highly in time.
Yes it does take time I am afraid but with the correct strategies you can and will beat your competitors to those elusive inquiries and ultimately to sell more real estate through your web site.
Unfortunately there is no magic wand or silver bullet to achieving real estate search engine optimization but careful research and due diligence will and does prevail time and time again allowing you to seriously generate more inquiries and more sales.
Seo Company Selection
SEO Positive asked:
Among the biggest problems is the owner of the internet site is now to find out the right SEO company. Nowadays, almost all site owners realise the importance of search engine optimization for successful business on the Internet. It also has added to number of SEO firms in the industry, which is attempting to capture market. Of course, there are hundreds of companies, SEO, not all of them offering the best service.
You must be taking into account the following factors, such as in choosing your SEO company. The company you picked out should have plenty of experience in the right place for your web sites in the major search engines and, more importantly, it has the experience in dealing internet site* in your niche industry. Unlike other services, search engine optimisation field requires some very effective knowledge to get ood results.
Secondly, they must be able to provide guarantees for the results of that they\’ll be capable to assure for your internet site. Most companies are not on the results, but they have only vague promises. You had better avoid these companies and don\’t prefer them, The companies which are willing to guarantee the results. In addition, they offer a guarantee, it must be time limits, and should not be opened. Only if SEO companies have Logic, their promise to the extent of these guarantees. If the SEO services. offer a refund, you\’ve perfectly no risk.
Thirdly, the company you hire should work as your contribution to your company and be capable to do work with you closely and so as to get your useful input on your industry, because no one understands your business better than you. There should be an integral part of the action.
Fourthly, SEO company, you rent for your internet site had better provide you detailed and experts, reports on the activities and progress, they\’ve made a good ranking of your site in search engines.
They had better have an first-class support team, you are able to use with ease. You had better be able to use your questions quickly and professionally fashion.
Most importantly, it is suitable for affordable SEO packages for your budget. Today there are companies who are willing to pay enormous sums of money to get good rankings in search engines, but still pay a high price and not the desired results. It is your SEO companies offer their services at economical prices without conciliatory on result
Among the biggest problems is the owner of the internet site is now to find out the right SEO company. Nowadays, almost all site owners realise the importance of search engine optimization for successful business on the Internet. It also has added to number of SEO firms in the industry, which is attempting to capture market. Of course, there are hundreds of companies, SEO, not all of them offering the best service.
You must be taking into account the following factors, such as in choosing your SEO company. The company you picked out should have plenty of experience in the right place for your web sites in the major search engines and, more importantly, it has the experience in dealing internet site* in your niche industry. Unlike other services, search engine optimisation field requires some very effective knowledge to get ood results.
Secondly, they must be able to provide guarantees for the results of that they\’ll be capable to assure for your internet site. Most companies are not on the results, but they have only vague promises. You had better avoid these companies and don\’t prefer them, The companies which are willing to guarantee the results. In addition, they offer a guarantee, it must be time limits, and should not be opened. Only if SEO companies have Logic, their promise to the extent of these guarantees. If the SEO services. offer a refund, you\’ve perfectly no risk.
Thirdly, the company you hire should work as your contribution to your company and be capable to do work with you closely and so as to get your useful input on your industry, because no one understands your business better than you. There should be an integral part of the action.
Fourthly, SEO company, you rent for your internet site had better provide you detailed and experts, reports on the activities and progress, they\’ve made a good ranking of your site in search engines.
They had better have an first-class support team, you are able to use with ease. You had better be able to use your questions quickly and professionally fashion.
Most importantly, it is suitable for affordable SEO packages for your budget. Today there are companies who are willing to pay enormous sums of money to get good rankings in search engines, but still pay a high price and not the desired results. It is your SEO companies offer their services at economical prices without conciliatory on result
Use SEO Marketing Services to Promote Your Business Website
SEO Service Company asked:
Search Engine Marketing is one of the most popular website marketing strategies. Search Engine Marketing or Optimization is the success mantra behind success of several internet based business websites.
There are around several hundred websites which are devoted to SEO Marketing, but the ultimate question is “What is the best Search Marketing SEO Strategy?” This question intrigues every single business owner.
What are the various types of Marketing Channels and how do they differ from Search Engine Marketing ?
You will spot several marketing mediums which can promote your business online, offline, or a combination of both online and offline channels. However, if your business clients/sales are internet based, then you must seriously consider SEO marketing of your website.
On the other hand, if your business is based offline, then you will have to concentrate on offline marketing techniques.
Some of the well known marketing techniques are as follow:-
1. Marketing Offline – You can take example of a food restaurant where business owners will consider promoting their business through various offline marketing channels. Here restaurant owners will target newspapers, hoardings, popular radio channels, and television to promote their food restaurant within a specific geo location.
2. Marketing Online & Offline – There are some particular businesses/firms where you will spot almost equal percentage of customers visiting online (internet) as well as offline. For example, a travel company could be receiving bookings directly through website and manually by travelers who visit their office.
Search Engine Marketing can greatly enhance your overall ROI since it specifically concentrates on those users who are already interested in your business services. These users throng various search engines to locate their services and if your website is ranking on top of search engines, then it will help to improve your sales and ROI. Hiring an SEO service company will help these businesses to establish their presence on search engines.
3. SEO Internet Marketing – There are some businesses which are purely internet based. In these types of businesses, the chances of getting an online visitor are several times higher as compared to other marketing medium. These internet based businesses specifically focus on Search engine marketing. These businesses are well versed with the benefits of the SEO marketing and hire SEO companies to promote their business services/products.
If you are planning to promote your business on search engines, then you should get in touch with an SEO specialist firm which will help you improve ROI and traffic for your business website.
Search Engine Marketing is one of the most popular website marketing strategies. Search Engine Marketing or Optimization is the success mantra behind success of several internet based business websites.
There are around several hundred websites which are devoted to SEO Marketing, but the ultimate question is “What is the best Search Marketing SEO Strategy?” This question intrigues every single business owner.
What are the various types of Marketing Channels and how do they differ from Search Engine Marketing ?
You will spot several marketing mediums which can promote your business online, offline, or a combination of both online and offline channels. However, if your business clients/sales are internet based, then you must seriously consider SEO marketing of your website.
On the other hand, if your business is based offline, then you will have to concentrate on offline marketing techniques.
Some of the well known marketing techniques are as follow:-
1. Marketing Offline – You can take example of a food restaurant where business owners will consider promoting their business through various offline marketing channels. Here restaurant owners will target newspapers, hoardings, popular radio channels, and television to promote their food restaurant within a specific geo location.
2. Marketing Online & Offline – There are some particular businesses/firms where you will spot almost equal percentage of customers visiting online (internet) as well as offline. For example, a travel company could be receiving bookings directly through website and manually by travelers who visit their office.
Search Engine Marketing can greatly enhance your overall ROI since it specifically concentrates on those users who are already interested in your business services. These users throng various search engines to locate their services and if your website is ranking on top of search engines, then it will help to improve your sales and ROI. Hiring an SEO service company will help these businesses to establish their presence on search engines.
3. SEO Internet Marketing – There are some businesses which are purely internet based. In these types of businesses, the chances of getting an online visitor are several times higher as compared to other marketing medium. These internet based businesses specifically focus on Search engine marketing. These businesses are well versed with the benefits of the SEO marketing and hire SEO companies to promote their business services/products.
If you are planning to promote your business on search engines, then you should get in touch with an SEO specialist firm which will help you improve ROI and traffic for your business website.
Telling Apart The Fakes From The Real Search Engine Optimization Expert
Moe Tamani asked:
So you found a company that claims to be a Search Engine Optimization Expert, but you are not sure if they really are the Search Engine Optimization Expert they say they are. So how can you weed out the fakes and the incompetents from one who is a real Search Engine.
Optimization Expert?
A Search Engine Optimization Expert is one who understands that SEO has two functions: The Search Engine Optimization Expert has to foresee what the customers or potential visitors to your website would like to see as content of your website; and the Search Engine Optimization Expert also has to work within the constraints set by the preferred search engines.
Your Search Engine Optimization Expert should be able to identify the special keywords that are most likely to be used by your end users, readers or visitors. Some SEO teams will provide you with hundreds of keywords to use in your website content, but that is not effective or efficient because many of those target words and phrases may not be used by many people. Effective marketing by your Search Engine Optimization Expert means narrowing down the search process for your target visitors to a select list of keywords and key phrases that are very popular among the Internet population.
Your Search Engine Optimization Expert should also know that basic keyword research still contributes a lot to effective SEO efforts. This means prioritizing quality hits from quality visitors over just hiking the number of hits you get from the world at large. This is because a real Search Engine Optimization Expert knows that you are after revenues so that your business can not only survive but thrive, rather than just being a popular site for people to glance through. Even if you are the most-visited site on the Internet, if that doesn’t translate to revenues for you, then hiring a Search Engine Optimization Expert becomes a useless effort.
Something that is not commonly known except by an actual Search Engine Optimization Expert is that text is not the sole content being eyed by search engines when ranking websites anymore. Nowadays, your Search Engine Optimization Expert should understand that content like news articles, videos and images are also part of the content which are scrutinized by search engines and contribute to your rankings. So a so-called Search Engine Optimization Expert who insists on text-only content has clearly missed the bus so you need to look elsewhere for a better Search Engine Optimization Expert to consult and hire.
Does your Search Engine Optimization Expert know how to use online press releases? Online press releases can be used by your Search Engine Optimization Expert by submitting them to formats like RSS feeds and news sites – and yes, even search engines. Online press releases (in the hands of a competent Search Engine Optimization Expert) can prove to be an effective way for link building to be conducted. But your online press releases should not concentrate on promoting your company name. If your Search Engine Optimization Expert doesn’t know that, tell him to focus instead on providing information and news articles that act as a supplemental service to the Internet community. The Search Engine Optimization Expert should create this type of content from the perspective of the reader, audience or end user. Online press releases are best sent out to target channels at least two times per month. Online press releases are also a good way to integrate target words and phrases into the content so that your Search Engine Optimization Expert is hitting two birds with one stone: keyword usage and promotion of the website.
Your Search Engine Optimization Expert must focus on certain areas in the SEO effort that will make it more effective. Very popular keywords must be placed in the title tag, with less priority on the company name. Your website URL should be as short as possible, yet very concise with use of information. Adding a keyword or two to the URL is also a good idea. User-friendly content that has been written by master writers is great and always a good addition to the website.
Prioritize quality links over mass link building. And have your Search Engine Optimization Expert place a site map on your website for the convenience of your visitors so they don’t get lost.
If you find outsourcing work to a Search Engine Optimization Expert to be rather costly, consider hiring an in-house Search Engine Optimization Expert instead. This may drive down your expenses by a lot, and also gives you more control over what your Search Engine Optimization Expert is doing for you. You might opt for a multidisciplinary Search Engine Optimization Expert team that has IT and Marketing expertise for best results.
So you found a company that claims to be a Search Engine Optimization Expert, but you are not sure if they really are the Search Engine Optimization Expert they say they are. So how can you weed out the fakes and the incompetents from one who is a real Search Engine.
Optimization Expert?
A Search Engine Optimization Expert is one who understands that SEO has two functions: The Search Engine Optimization Expert has to foresee what the customers or potential visitors to your website would like to see as content of your website; and the Search Engine Optimization Expert also has to work within the constraints set by the preferred search engines.
Your Search Engine Optimization Expert should be able to identify the special keywords that are most likely to be used by your end users, readers or visitors. Some SEO teams will provide you with hundreds of keywords to use in your website content, but that is not effective or efficient because many of those target words and phrases may not be used by many people. Effective marketing by your Search Engine Optimization Expert means narrowing down the search process for your target visitors to a select list of keywords and key phrases that are very popular among the Internet population.
Your Search Engine Optimization Expert should also know that basic keyword research still contributes a lot to effective SEO efforts. This means prioritizing quality hits from quality visitors over just hiking the number of hits you get from the world at large. This is because a real Search Engine Optimization Expert knows that you are after revenues so that your business can not only survive but thrive, rather than just being a popular site for people to glance through. Even if you are the most-visited site on the Internet, if that doesn’t translate to revenues for you, then hiring a Search Engine Optimization Expert becomes a useless effort.
Something that is not commonly known except by an actual Search Engine Optimization Expert is that text is not the sole content being eyed by search engines when ranking websites anymore. Nowadays, your Search Engine Optimization Expert should understand that content like news articles, videos and images are also part of the content which are scrutinized by search engines and contribute to your rankings. So a so-called Search Engine Optimization Expert who insists on text-only content has clearly missed the bus so you need to look elsewhere for a better Search Engine Optimization Expert to consult and hire.
Does your Search Engine Optimization Expert know how to use online press releases? Online press releases can be used by your Search Engine Optimization Expert by submitting them to formats like RSS feeds and news sites – and yes, even search engines. Online press releases (in the hands of a competent Search Engine Optimization Expert) can prove to be an effective way for link building to be conducted. But your online press releases should not concentrate on promoting your company name. If your Search Engine Optimization Expert doesn’t know that, tell him to focus instead on providing information and news articles that act as a supplemental service to the Internet community. The Search Engine Optimization Expert should create this type of content from the perspective of the reader, audience or end user. Online press releases are best sent out to target channels at least two times per month. Online press releases are also a good way to integrate target words and phrases into the content so that your Search Engine Optimization Expert is hitting two birds with one stone: keyword usage and promotion of the website.
Your Search Engine Optimization Expert must focus on certain areas in the SEO effort that will make it more effective. Very popular keywords must be placed in the title tag, with less priority on the company name. Your website URL should be as short as possible, yet very concise with use of information. Adding a keyword or two to the URL is also a good idea. User-friendly content that has been written by master writers is great and always a good addition to the website.
Prioritize quality links over mass link building. And have your Search Engine Optimization Expert place a site map on your website for the convenience of your visitors so they don’t get lost.
If you find outsourcing work to a Search Engine Optimization Expert to be rather costly, consider hiring an in-house Search Engine Optimization Expert instead. This may drive down your expenses by a lot, and also gives you more control over what your Search Engine Optimization Expert is doing for you. You might opt for a multidisciplinary Search Engine Optimization Expert team that has IT and Marketing expertise for best results.
The Benefits of Search Engine Optimization
Ashok Jindal asked:
The Benefits of Search Engine Optimization
No matter what kind of website you have, chances are you want it to be seen by as many people as possible. Search engine optimization (SEO) services are the only surefire way to make sure that people know your website exists, and the pathway for getting to it. As an example, if you are running a business, the right search engine optimization strategy can put your website on the internet browsers of people all over the world.
The three top search engines are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Each company has special software that visits websites, and attempts to place it into useful categories, with the relative sites listed in the top 10 options returned. While every person has their favorite search engine, the software underneath works pretty much the same. Search engine optimization is not difficult; however, specialists in this field have to keep up with the latest trends in search engine ranking methods. Manual directory submission service is good process for better ranking.
Each company that hosts a search engine uses a slightly different program. Search engine technicians and designers will try to make sure that search engine optimization techniques do not get ahead of their ability to deliver results highly relative to the search query. Google, in particular, is known as an industry leader in finding new ways to rank sites that will provide more relative results. Whether or not their changes alter your search engine ranking will depend on whether or not you keep up a regimen of search engine optimization SEO Company. More often than not, you will need a reputable and experienced search engine optimization specialist to evaluate your website and keep it in line with the latest search engine ranking trends.
While continuous search engine optimization may not seem important, a loss or drop in your Google ranking could have serious consequences. Since Google is one of the top three search engines favored by users, as goes Google, so goes the world, and so must go your website. A search engine optimization specialist has the time and industry experience to delve deep into the latest and newest features in search engine technology. They can then take this information and use it to make your website extremely friendly to search engine software, thus netting you a very good ranking.
Over the years, search engine optimization service has gone well beyond inserting certain descriptor words, or Meta tags into the html of the site. As an example, did you know that the domain name you selected can mean a significant difference in your ranking? Search engine optimization specialists know all the premier methods for improving your site’s rank. In addition, if you have already gone ahead and named your domain, a search engine optimization specialist will be able to help you maximize your site in other ways.
The internet landscape changes daily. With it also come vast changes to the ways in which search engines categorize your site so that others can find it. Professional search engine optimization, therefore, is a critical part of ensuring that your website achieves the world presence that you want it to have.
The Benefits of Search Engine Optimization
No matter what kind of website you have, chances are you want it to be seen by as many people as possible. Search engine optimization (SEO) services are the only surefire way to make sure that people know your website exists, and the pathway for getting to it. As an example, if you are running a business, the right search engine optimization strategy can put your website on the internet browsers of people all over the world.
The three top search engines are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Each company has special software that visits websites, and attempts to place it into useful categories, with the relative sites listed in the top 10 options returned. While every person has their favorite search engine, the software underneath works pretty much the same. Search engine optimization is not difficult; however, specialists in this field have to keep up with the latest trends in search engine ranking methods. Manual directory submission service is good process for better ranking.
Each company that hosts a search engine uses a slightly different program. Search engine technicians and designers will try to make sure that search engine optimization techniques do not get ahead of their ability to deliver results highly relative to the search query. Google, in particular, is known as an industry leader in finding new ways to rank sites that will provide more relative results. Whether or not their changes alter your search engine ranking will depend on whether or not you keep up a regimen of search engine optimization SEO Company. More often than not, you will need a reputable and experienced search engine optimization specialist to evaluate your website and keep it in line with the latest search engine ranking trends.
While continuous search engine optimization may not seem important, a loss or drop in your Google ranking could have serious consequences. Since Google is one of the top three search engines favored by users, as goes Google, so goes the world, and so must go your website. A search engine optimization specialist has the time and industry experience to delve deep into the latest and newest features in search engine technology. They can then take this information and use it to make your website extremely friendly to search engine software, thus netting you a very good ranking.
Over the years, search engine optimization service has gone well beyond inserting certain descriptor words, or Meta tags into the html of the site. As an example, did you know that the domain name you selected can mean a significant difference in your ranking? Search engine optimization specialists know all the premier methods for improving your site’s rank. In addition, if you have already gone ahead and named your domain, a search engine optimization specialist will be able to help you maximize your site in other ways.
The internet landscape changes daily. With it also come vast changes to the ways in which search engines categorize your site so that others can find it. Professional search engine optimization, therefore, is a critical part of ensuring that your website achieves the world presence that you want it to have.
Web Traffic – How to Use Search Engine Optimization To Drive Web Traffic
Jackie Lee asked:
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many internet marketers. Search engines are where people go first to find what they are looking for online. For example, if you wanted a chicken recipe for dinner, you would probably go to Google and search for “chicken recipe”. Now if you happen to have a recipe site, and you optimized your site for chicken recipe you would come up on the top of the list when someone searched for that.
Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is the barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you get.
The key is to be able to get your site to come up at the top of the results for the keywords you have chosen, and the keywords people are searching for. It does your site no good to be #1 on Google for purple bear paws, if no one is searching for that term. Getting your site to rank number one for a particular keyword you are targeting is what search engine optimization is all about. You need to do it to get traffic to your site and make money.
With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you only convert 10% of your traffic to sales. If you only get a hundred hits in a day you have already made one sale. This is very possible using search engine optimization. If you get only ten hits a day using other methods you will only make one sale every 10 days! That’s a big difference.
So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.
Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.
You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.
You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.
Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.
If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.
Search engine optimization is one of the very best ways you can drive web traffic to your site. Not only do you get traffic, but once you have done the work to get your site to the top of the search engine rankings for your keywords you will get that traffic over and over with minimal continuing work on your part.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many internet marketers. Search engines are where people go first to find what they are looking for online. For example, if you wanted a chicken recipe for dinner, you would probably go to Google and search for “chicken recipe”. Now if you happen to have a recipe site, and you optimized your site for chicken recipe you would come up on the top of the list when someone searched for that.
Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is the barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you get.
The key is to be able to get your site to come up at the top of the results for the keywords you have chosen, and the keywords people are searching for. It does your site no good to be #1 on Google for purple bear paws, if no one is searching for that term. Getting your site to rank number one for a particular keyword you are targeting is what search engine optimization is all about. You need to do it to get traffic to your site and make money.
With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let’s just say you only convert 10% of your traffic to sales. If you only get a hundred hits in a day you have already made one sale. This is very possible using search engine optimization. If you get only ten hits a day using other methods you will only make one sale every 10 days! That’s a big difference.
So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.
Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.
You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.
You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.
Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.
If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.
Search engine optimization is one of the very best ways you can drive web traffic to your site. Not only do you get traffic, but once you have done the work to get your site to the top of the search engine rankings for your keywords you will get that traffic over and over with minimal continuing work on your part.
The Worst SEO Mistakes You Can Make
SEO Sapien asked:
Everyone wants their websites to be search engine optimized, or SEO-friendly. However, there are some common errors that people make when they’re doing SEO work on their site, and these errors can actually cost them that highly coveted top ten ranking that everyone wants. Here are some things to avoid when doing SEO work on your website.
Remember the ALT tags! Almost every image on your website (not including the background and any images that serve as buttons and the like) needs to have ALT text. This is the text that shows up if the image doesn’t load. More importantly, however, it’s the text that tells search engines what the image is since the programs can’t actually see the picture. A good ALT tag will include two or three of your keywords, and it’s a great place to stick in extra keywords that the viewer will (hopefully, unless your image is missing) never see.
Don’t use the same title tag on every page of your site. While it may be easy to simply write one title for your homepage and then leave it on every page, this is another place where you’re losing out on a place to stick keywords. Vary the title for each page so that search engines will notice the difference, and try to include different keywords for different pages.
Avoid scripts! While Flash and the like are becoming more compatible with search engines, it’s still difficult for more search engines to see inside Flash objects. This means you’re losing places to put meta tags, ALT tags, and more.
Don’t just write for robots. While writing articles with a high keyword density might get your page ranked higher by the search engine, it’s going to send actual human readers away. They don’t want to read anything redundant or clumsy. “Our furniture store in London provides great furniture for London residents looking for furniture designed specifically for London” is going to either annoy readers or make them laugh at the horrible writing. Be sure your SEO phrases and such can be integrated into the text seamlessly so they don’t stand out and don’t over-use them.
Also, actually write your website text yourself (or hire someone to write it). Don’t plagiarize – don’t copy and paste text off of one website and put it on yours without making it clear where the text came from. Too much duplicate text on your page will be flagged by search engines.
Likewise, avoid any bad SEO practices like hidden text or keyword stuffing. Hidden text refers to adding a ton of keywords at the bottom of a website and then making them the same color as the background, effectively hiding them from viewers. Search engines still see them, however. In the past, this was a technique that did actually make search engines rank sites higher, but today’s robots are smart enough to recognize this technique and ignore it. Likewise, keyword stuffing, or making a webpage that’s almost nothing but keywords, raises a number of flags in search engine robots and may actually get your pages ranked lower.
Finally, make certain all of your links describe where they’re going. No one likes to click links that aren’t clearly described by the surrounding text or give a good idea of their target. Plus, links are another factor a search engine uses to determine site relevancy, so not clearly marking them is detrimental in several ways.
Everyone wants their websites to be search engine optimized, or SEO-friendly. However, there are some common errors that people make when they’re doing SEO work on their site, and these errors can actually cost them that highly coveted top ten ranking that everyone wants. Here are some things to avoid when doing SEO work on your website.
Remember the ALT tags! Almost every image on your website (not including the background and any images that serve as buttons and the like) needs to have ALT text. This is the text that shows up if the image doesn’t load. More importantly, however, it’s the text that tells search engines what the image is since the programs can’t actually see the picture. A good ALT tag will include two or three of your keywords, and it’s a great place to stick in extra keywords that the viewer will (hopefully, unless your image is missing) never see.
Don’t use the same title tag on every page of your site. While it may be easy to simply write one title for your homepage and then leave it on every page, this is another place where you’re losing out on a place to stick keywords. Vary the title for each page so that search engines will notice the difference, and try to include different keywords for different pages.
Avoid scripts! While Flash and the like are becoming more compatible with search engines, it’s still difficult for more search engines to see inside Flash objects. This means you’re losing places to put meta tags, ALT tags, and more.
Don’t just write for robots. While writing articles with a high keyword density might get your page ranked higher by the search engine, it’s going to send actual human readers away. They don’t want to read anything redundant or clumsy. “Our furniture store in London provides great furniture for London residents looking for furniture designed specifically for London” is going to either annoy readers or make them laugh at the horrible writing. Be sure your SEO phrases and such can be integrated into the text seamlessly so they don’t stand out and don’t over-use them.
Also, actually write your website text yourself (or hire someone to write it). Don’t plagiarize – don’t copy and paste text off of one website and put it on yours without making it clear where the text came from. Too much duplicate text on your page will be flagged by search engines.
Likewise, avoid any bad SEO practices like hidden text or keyword stuffing. Hidden text refers to adding a ton of keywords at the bottom of a website and then making them the same color as the background, effectively hiding them from viewers. Search engines still see them, however. In the past, this was a technique that did actually make search engines rank sites higher, but today’s robots are smart enough to recognize this technique and ignore it. Likewise, keyword stuffing, or making a webpage that’s almost nothing but keywords, raises a number of flags in search engine robots and may actually get your pages ranked lower.
Finally, make certain all of your links describe where they’re going. No one likes to click links that aren’t clearly described by the surrounding text or give a good idea of their target. Plus, links are another factor a search engine uses to determine site relevancy, so not clearly marking them is detrimental in several ways.
Search Engine Marketing, Standing Above the Rest
Search-Engine-Man asked:
Introducing the Searchlinqs.com Web Blog.As a member of the searchlinqs Internet Marketing team, it’s an exciting time to be a part of our emerging Internet Advertising Industry. Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Placement (SEP) & Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are shaping the way we work, play, shop and market ourselves online. That’s a pretty big statement to make! The content that appears on Google, Yahoo and MSN are by no means accidental or arbitrary. The algorithm/formula for sorting what appears on the Search Engines, are closely guarded secrets worth millions of dollars of marketing revenue and can turn the most obscure site or gossip into international results.Much like a newspaper editor or publicist, a decision is made on what content is relevant or invisible to the rest of us. The search engine results only begin with the selected keywords entered into a Search Engine. Careful observation and analysis of those search results are part what the SEO industry and Search Engine Optimization companies do. Google, Yahoo and MSN has become the defacto portals and gatekeepers for the online service world. The sheer volume-combinations of search terms, keywords and related keywords can only be managed by software agents. When these giants move, the Search Engine universe shudders. Google has released no less than 10 updates in the last 2 years; each change shapes the search engine landscape.We have created this SEO blog to showcase Internet Advertising, Internet Marketing tools, showcase Tutorials & Recent Articles, Keyword research strategies and offer opinions on that we feel are major issues affecting our industry. We hope that you find us a useful source and hope you visit us often. Search-Engine-Man www.searchlinqs.com
Introducing the Searchlinqs.com Web Blog.As a member of the searchlinqs Internet Marketing team, it’s an exciting time to be a part of our emerging Internet Advertising Industry. Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Placement (SEP) & Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are shaping the way we work, play, shop and market ourselves online. That’s a pretty big statement to make! The content that appears on Google, Yahoo and MSN are by no means accidental or arbitrary. The algorithm/formula for sorting what appears on the Search Engines, are closely guarded secrets worth millions of dollars of marketing revenue and can turn the most obscure site or gossip into international results.Much like a newspaper editor or publicist, a decision is made on what content is relevant or invisible to the rest of us. The search engine results only begin with the selected keywords entered into a Search Engine. Careful observation and analysis of those search results are part what the SEO industry and Search Engine Optimization companies do. Google, Yahoo and MSN has become the defacto portals and gatekeepers for the online service world. The sheer volume-combinations of search terms, keywords and related keywords can only be managed by software agents. When these giants move, the Search Engine universe shudders. Google has released no less than 10 updates in the last 2 years; each change shapes the search engine landscape.We have created this SEO blog to showcase Internet Advertising, Internet Marketing tools, showcase Tutorials & Recent Articles, Keyword research strategies and offer opinions on that we feel are major issues affecting our industry. We hope that you find us a useful source and hope you visit us often. Search-Engine-Man www.searchlinqs.com
What to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Company
Moe Tamani asked:
If you are a serious business website owner, chances are you are constantly on the lookout for ethical means to promote your website to your target market. Chances are also good that you probably read somewhere or heard from someone that your most practical promotion solution is to trust your business to a search engine optimization company. The processes of promoting your site and increase your online visibility is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. If you are familiar with the term but do not have the expertise to properly implement SEO for your website, then you might want to consider hiring a Search Engine Optimization Company to do that work for you.
What is a Search Engine Optimization company? It is an organization whose objective is to provide the necessary tools and expertise to optimize your website towards the goal of securing for you a first or second page ranking in the search engine’s list of keyword-responsive sites. A Search Engine Optimization company’s role is that of an influencer, i.e., the strategies it employs for your website are geared towards influencing the search engine’s “spiderbot” to give it a high relevance rating which, in turn, influences its ranking. A Search Engine Optimization company’s indirect role is also to influence the surfer to visit your website but is not responsible for what happens to the visit.
There are many Search Engine Optimization companies that have hung their virtual shingle in cyberspace, with many more sprouting up each and every day. With so many choices available, it is important that you are guided in selecting the right Search Engine Optimization company that best suits your requirements and budget. Here are a few tips in selecting that Search Engine Optimization company:
• Always Go for Reputation and Experience
This is pretty much a common sense tip. When you are headed for the unknown, it always makes sense to go with a guide who knows what you don’t. A Search Engine Optimization company that has years of experience as an organization and has people working for it with years of individual experience is normally a good choice. Experience, however, is just one half of this selection criterion, the other half being REPUTATION. A Search Engine Optimization company may have the experience, but if it has a track record of unethical or even illegal SEO activity, then the experience counts for nothing.
• Avoid SEO companies that Spam
A Search Engine Optimization company that sends spam email to promote itself is not a good Search Engine Optimization company and will get your site banned costing you more that it will ever benefit from.
• A company that hides everything, has something to hide
Beware of the Search Engine Optimization company that has a “black box” solution for everything that ails your website, i.e., you don’t need to know how it works; you just pay. In all likelihood, what this type of Search Engine Optimization company is hiding from you is, at best, unethical, or at worst, illegal. It is very important for you to understand what is going to be done with your website (in lay man’s terms) because, at the end of the day, it IS your website and you will have to live with whatever the Search Engine Optimization company does to it.
• Go Window Shopping
Like with every important purchase decision you make, you must check out more than one Search Engine Optimization company before you make a decision. Ask for a list of the websites they claim to have worked on, and do your own research. Also, ask each Search Engine Optimization company you are considering about what they think of the other candidates in your list. Be wary if they launch into a negative marketing pitch about their competition. A really good Search Engine Optimization company will rarely badmouth a competitor. Even if the competitor is really bad, the worst that a good Search Engine Optimization company will do is objectively point out their strengths and weaknesses.
• Go with the Clear Deal
A good Search Engine Optimization company will always be very clear any work proposal it makes. It clearly spells out the terms of reference, timelines, commercial aspects, guarantees, penalties, any other items that it and you may find relevant towards meeting your expectations. That way, you know what you are getting into and what (and what not) to expect.
These are but a few tips on how to select the expert that will take care of optimizing your website for you. Approach a Search Engine Optimization company like you would any other company that you are considering to handle some work for you, and you are covered.
If you are a serious business website owner, chances are you are constantly on the lookout for ethical means to promote your website to your target market. Chances are also good that you probably read somewhere or heard from someone that your most practical promotion solution is to trust your business to a search engine optimization company. The processes of promoting your site and increase your online visibility is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. If you are familiar with the term but do not have the expertise to properly implement SEO for your website, then you might want to consider hiring a Search Engine Optimization Company to do that work for you.
What is a Search Engine Optimization company? It is an organization whose objective is to provide the necessary tools and expertise to optimize your website towards the goal of securing for you a first or second page ranking in the search engine’s list of keyword-responsive sites. A Search Engine Optimization company’s role is that of an influencer, i.e., the strategies it employs for your website are geared towards influencing the search engine’s “spiderbot” to give it a high relevance rating which, in turn, influences its ranking. A Search Engine Optimization company’s indirect role is also to influence the surfer to visit your website but is not responsible for what happens to the visit.
There are many Search Engine Optimization companies that have hung their virtual shingle in cyberspace, with many more sprouting up each and every day. With so many choices available, it is important that you are guided in selecting the right Search Engine Optimization company that best suits your requirements and budget. Here are a few tips in selecting that Search Engine Optimization company:
• Always Go for Reputation and Experience
This is pretty much a common sense tip. When you are headed for the unknown, it always makes sense to go with a guide who knows what you don’t. A Search Engine Optimization company that has years of experience as an organization and has people working for it with years of individual experience is normally a good choice. Experience, however, is just one half of this selection criterion, the other half being REPUTATION. A Search Engine Optimization company may have the experience, but if it has a track record of unethical or even illegal SEO activity, then the experience counts for nothing.
• Avoid SEO companies that Spam
A Search Engine Optimization company that sends spam email to promote itself is not a good Search Engine Optimization company and will get your site banned costing you more that it will ever benefit from.
• A company that hides everything, has something to hide
Beware of the Search Engine Optimization company that has a “black box” solution for everything that ails your website, i.e., you don’t need to know how it works; you just pay. In all likelihood, what this type of Search Engine Optimization company is hiding from you is, at best, unethical, or at worst, illegal. It is very important for you to understand what is going to be done with your website (in lay man’s terms) because, at the end of the day, it IS your website and you will have to live with whatever the Search Engine Optimization company does to it.
• Go Window Shopping
Like with every important purchase decision you make, you must check out more than one Search Engine Optimization company before you make a decision. Ask for a list of the websites they claim to have worked on, and do your own research. Also, ask each Search Engine Optimization company you are considering about what they think of the other candidates in your list. Be wary if they launch into a negative marketing pitch about their competition. A really good Search Engine Optimization company will rarely badmouth a competitor. Even if the competitor is really bad, the worst that a good Search Engine Optimization company will do is objectively point out their strengths and weaknesses.
• Go with the Clear Deal
A good Search Engine Optimization company will always be very clear any work proposal it makes. It clearly spells out the terms of reference, timelines, commercial aspects, guarantees, penalties, any other items that it and you may find relevant towards meeting your expectations. That way, you know what you are getting into and what (and what not) to expect.
These are but a few tips on how to select the expert that will take care of optimizing your website for you. Approach a Search Engine Optimization company like you would any other company that you are considering to handle some work for you, and you are covered.
Search Engine Optimization for Blogs
Bill Hartzer asked:
Whether it’s a corporate blog, a news-type blog, or even a personal blog, optimizing your blog for the search engines is a must. There are some simple changes that you can make to WordPress and Moveable Type that will make your blog more search engine friendly and make the search engines beg for more (more post and content, that is!).
Optimizing a blog is just like optimizing any other website. The content and pages (posts) must be unique, they must be search engine friendly, and it needs links from other websites. If it’s a new blog, then you first need to make sure the blog software you’re using is set up so that it takes advantage of all of the possible optimization features. Then, announce it to the world, work on getting some links to it, and start making posts.
WordPress Optimization
If you’re using WordPress for your blog software, it’s important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly, meaning that it can easily be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it’s important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible. It’s important to set up your blog’s software so that the URLs don’t contain a lot of variables. Instead, use URLs that include the post title or post name in them. For example, if you’re using WordPress you’ll need to set the permalinks so that it uses %postname% in the URL. You can also set up a specific category for the post archives, and you might consider using a keyword that’s related to your blog instead of the default, which is typically the word “archive”. Fintan Darragh of www.dech.co.uk has a great blog post called “Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips” (http://www.dech.co.uk/2005/11/ultimate-WordPress-seo-tips/). Mr. Darragh talks about permalink optimization and says, “The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL search engine and people attractive. Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it’s as easy as WordPress makes it.” He also goes on to talk about getting rid of useless tags like the month, day, and year, as well as one important detail: whatever you do stick with the site structure you choose—otherwise you might end up with a lot of useless links to your site. Other tips that Mr. Darragh mentions are optimizing your page titles and your post titles–and installing a few plugins that are useful such as the “Related Posts Plugin” and the “Technorati Tag Generator”.
There are several other places where you can get specific tips about setting up WordPress in a search engine friendly manner, including: * SEO at Aleeya Dot Net – http://www.aleeya.net/category/WordPress/seo/
* The Best WordPress SEO Possible – http://WordPress.org/support/topic/49168
* Search Engine Optimization for WordPress – http://codex.WordPress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_WordPress
* Search Engine Optimization for Blogs – http://www.blog-maniac.com/blog-seo.htm
* DYI Search Engine Optimization – http://lorelle.WordPress.com/2006/01/15/dyi-search-engine-optimization/ One of the best tutorials out there is one called “DYI Search Engine Optimization” by Lorelle VanFossen. Specifically, Lorelle (lorelle.WordPress.com) has some great tips, including how to optimize your code, develop strong intrasite links, write with strong keyword usage, use categories and tags, and how to use ping services. Lorelle says that “the goal is to help search engine crawlers move through your website collecting information to be stored in the search engine’s database. The key to your blog’s data making it successfully into a search engine’s database is to: 1) Make sure there are no road blocks in the path of a search engine crawler.
2) Make sure the crawler can move through your blog, examining all your web pages.
3) Provide adequate keywords and key phrases which clearly help categorize your content.
4) Provide clearly labeled tags and categories recognized by tagging service crawlers and many search engines today.
5) Take advantage of pinging services.” There are several WordPress Plugins available that will help you take advantage of internal linking (like the Related Posts Plugin) which will link to other posts in your blog that are on the same topic.
Other plugins that might be helpful are plugins that automatically generate a Google Sitemap file as well as plugins that help you categorize the site such as the WordPress Subdomain Plugin (http://www.webguerrilla.com/WordPress-subdomain-plugin/).
Movable Type Optimization
If you’re using Movable Type for your blog software, then it’s also important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly and can be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it’s important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible. Miles Evans (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310Movable TypeSEO.html) says that “Movable Type is optimized quite well out of the box, but there are a few quick tricks to easily providing the spiders with some dynamic content.” He goes on to say that you need to optimize your template. “For my main home page and category index pages I hardcode most of my meta data. Your meta tags will be at the top of the template within the tag. You can get fancy on your index pages but I cannot really see why. Optimize these two templates by hand for whatever keywords you are targeting site wide.” Mr. Evans also has another article titled, “Best Movable Type Plugins” (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310BestMovable TypePlugins.html) that talks about his favorite plugins that help him get great search engine rankings. His favorite Movable Type Plugins for SEO are Dashify, MTPaginate, MT Blogroll, MT InlineEditor, MT-Textile, BigPAPI, as well as Ajaxify (a set of plugins that adds several ajax/javascript widgets into the Movable Type interface), CheckLinks, FormatList v1.0, and Better File Uploader for uploading files. Nicholas Carvan (http://www.nicholascaravan.com) has a great article about Movable Type optimization called “Optimizing your Movable Type blog for Google” (http://www.nicholascarvan.com/blog/optimizing_your_Movable Type_blog_for_google.html). In it he talks about PageRank (and how it relates to your internal linking on your blog), having keywords in your URL (which is important for all blog optimization) and blogrolling. He defines the term blogrolling very well, saying, “Blogrolling: Inbound links are gold, but in Google’s eyes, not all links are equal. In particular, Google isn’t wild about links contained within JavaScript – apparently they can index them, but that doesn’t mean they always want to.”
Once you’ve set up and configured your blog’s software, it’s important to make sure that you leave it alone—if you change your page URLs then any links that you’ve received from other bloggers may not be valid anymore. If you need to change your site’s structure (perhaps you’ve been blogging already and wish to use the tips from this article to optimize your blog), then you might want to take a look at the Objection Redirection WordPress Plugin(http://WordPress-plugins.biggnuts.com/objection-redirection-WordPress-plugin/) if you’re using WordPress. The Objection Redirection Plugin gives you a simple interface to redirect users (and search engine bots) to the proper page, especially if you’ve changed your site’s structure.
Start Blogging
The best thing you can do is to start blogging. Go ahead and post to your heart’s content and write, write, write about your topic. The more content you can provide the better—and it seems as if adding content on a regular basis really helps, as well. Feel free to link out to other blog posts that are related to the topic you’re writing about. For example, before you publish a post, go on over to your favorite blog search engine and find another recent post on the same subject—and link to the post. Linking out to other bloggers will get their attention, and hopefully they’ll end up linking to you as well. If other bloggers have trackbacks turned on then their blog will link back to your post. Some trackbacks are moderated, so it might take some time before your link shows up on the other blog. And some bloggers have trackbacks turned off, so a link back to your site might take some manual intervention. Categorize your posts as much as possible, and feel free to add categories as you blog—it will help the internal linking structure of your site, and help the search engines and users find on-topic posts.
Promoting Your Blog
Whenever you make a post in your blog, your blog software will attempt to ping certain sites to let them know that you just updated your blog. There are many blog ping services out there, including Ping-O-Matic and Pingoat. Your blog software can be configured to ping sites automatically, and I’ve posted a list for WordPress of ping services on by blog (http://www.corporatewebsitemarketing.info/cwm/WordPress-ping-list). If your blog is new or you would like to get some more links, you can submit your blog to blog directories as well as other sites that will list your blog (don’t forget to submit to DMOZ.org, Yahoo! Directory, and the Best of the Web Blog Directory). About.com has a great article about promoting a blog (http://weblogs.about.com/cs/blogpromotions/a/promoteblog.htm) and even Biz Stone has great tutorial about promoting your blog (http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1060). Lastly, don’t forget to turn on your blog’s RSS feed. And if you’re looking to promote your RSS feed, try searching your favorite search engine for “promote rss” to find a lot of good tutorials.
Promoting your blog is just like promoting a website—you need good spiderable content, links to your content, and you need to set up your blog software to take advantage of all the great features. There are also plugins that will help make blogging easier for all of us.
Whether it’s a corporate blog, a news-type blog, or even a personal blog, optimizing your blog for the search engines is a must. There are some simple changes that you can make to WordPress and Moveable Type that will make your blog more search engine friendly and make the search engines beg for more (more post and content, that is!).
Optimizing a blog is just like optimizing any other website. The content and pages (posts) must be unique, they must be search engine friendly, and it needs links from other websites. If it’s a new blog, then you first need to make sure the blog software you’re using is set up so that it takes advantage of all of the possible optimization features. Then, announce it to the world, work on getting some links to it, and start making posts.
WordPress Optimization
If you’re using WordPress for your blog software, it’s important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly, meaning that it can easily be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it’s important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible. It’s important to set up your blog’s software so that the URLs don’t contain a lot of variables. Instead, use URLs that include the post title or post name in them. For example, if you’re using WordPress you’ll need to set the permalinks so that it uses %postname% in the URL. You can also set up a specific category for the post archives, and you might consider using a keyword that’s related to your blog instead of the default, which is typically the word “archive”. Fintan Darragh of www.dech.co.uk has a great blog post called “Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips” (http://www.dech.co.uk/2005/11/ultimate-WordPress-seo-tips/). Mr. Darragh talks about permalink optimization and says, “The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL search engine and people attractive. Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it’s as easy as WordPress makes it.” He also goes on to talk about getting rid of useless tags like the month, day, and year, as well as one important detail: whatever you do stick with the site structure you choose—otherwise you might end up with a lot of useless links to your site. Other tips that Mr. Darragh mentions are optimizing your page titles and your post titles–and installing a few plugins that are useful such as the “Related Posts Plugin” and the “Technorati Tag Generator”.
There are several other places where you can get specific tips about setting up WordPress in a search engine friendly manner, including: * SEO at Aleeya Dot Net – http://www.aleeya.net/category/WordPress/seo/
* The Best WordPress SEO Possible – http://WordPress.org/support/topic/49168
* Search Engine Optimization for WordPress – http://codex.WordPress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_WordPress
* Search Engine Optimization for Blogs – http://www.blog-maniac.com/blog-seo.htm
* DYI Search Engine Optimization – http://lorelle.WordPress.com/2006/01/15/dyi-search-engine-optimization/ One of the best tutorials out there is one called “DYI Search Engine Optimization” by Lorelle VanFossen. Specifically, Lorelle (lorelle.WordPress.com) has some great tips, including how to optimize your code, develop strong intrasite links, write with strong keyword usage, use categories and tags, and how to use ping services. Lorelle says that “the goal is to help search engine crawlers move through your website collecting information to be stored in the search engine’s database. The key to your blog’s data making it successfully into a search engine’s database is to: 1) Make sure there are no road blocks in the path of a search engine crawler.
2) Make sure the crawler can move through your blog, examining all your web pages.
3) Provide adequate keywords and key phrases which clearly help categorize your content.
4) Provide clearly labeled tags and categories recognized by tagging service crawlers and many search engines today.
5) Take advantage of pinging services.” There are several WordPress Plugins available that will help you take advantage of internal linking (like the Related Posts Plugin) which will link to other posts in your blog that are on the same topic.
Other plugins that might be helpful are plugins that automatically generate a Google Sitemap file as well as plugins that help you categorize the site such as the WordPress Subdomain Plugin (http://www.webguerrilla.com/WordPress-subdomain-plugin/).
Movable Type Optimization
If you’re using Movable Type for your blog software, then it’s also important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly and can be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it’s important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible. Miles Evans (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310Movable TypeSEO.html) says that “Movable Type is optimized quite well out of the box, but there are a few quick tricks to easily providing the spiders with some dynamic content.” He goes on to say that you need to optimize your template. “For my main home page and category index pages I hardcode most of my meta data. Your meta tags will be at the top of the template within the tag. You can get fancy on your index pages but I cannot really see why. Optimize these two templates by hand for whatever keywords you are targeting site wide.” Mr. Evans also has another article titled, “Best Movable Type Plugins” (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310BestMovable TypePlugins.html) that talks about his favorite plugins that help him get great search engine rankings. His favorite Movable Type Plugins for SEO are Dashify, MTPaginate, MT Blogroll, MT InlineEditor, MT-Textile, BigPAPI, as well as Ajaxify (a set of plugins that adds several ajax/javascript widgets into the Movable Type interface), CheckLinks, FormatList v1.0, and Better File Uploader for uploading files. Nicholas Carvan (http://www.nicholascaravan.com) has a great article about Movable Type optimization called “Optimizing your Movable Type blog for Google” (http://www.nicholascarvan.com/blog/optimizing_your_Movable Type_blog_for_google.html). In it he talks about PageRank (and how it relates to your internal linking on your blog), having keywords in your URL (which is important for all blog optimization) and blogrolling. He defines the term blogrolling very well, saying, “Blogrolling: Inbound links are gold, but in Google’s eyes, not all links are equal. In particular, Google isn’t wild about links contained within JavaScript – apparently they can index them, but that doesn’t mean they always want to.”
Once you’ve set up and configured your blog’s software, it’s important to make sure that you leave it alone—if you change your page URLs then any links that you’ve received from other bloggers may not be valid anymore. If you need to change your site’s structure (perhaps you’ve been blogging already and wish to use the tips from this article to optimize your blog), then you might want to take a look at the Objection Redirection WordPress Plugin(http://WordPress-plugins.biggnuts.com/objection-redirection-WordPress-plugin/) if you’re using WordPress. The Objection Redirection Plugin gives you a simple interface to redirect users (and search engine bots) to the proper page, especially if you’ve changed your site’s structure.
Start Blogging
The best thing you can do is to start blogging. Go ahead and post to your heart’s content and write, write, write about your topic. The more content you can provide the better—and it seems as if adding content on a regular basis really helps, as well. Feel free to link out to other blog posts that are related to the topic you’re writing about. For example, before you publish a post, go on over to your favorite blog search engine and find another recent post on the same subject—and link to the post. Linking out to other bloggers will get their attention, and hopefully they’ll end up linking to you as well. If other bloggers have trackbacks turned on then their blog will link back to your post. Some trackbacks are moderated, so it might take some time before your link shows up on the other blog. And some bloggers have trackbacks turned off, so a link back to your site might take some manual intervention. Categorize your posts as much as possible, and feel free to add categories as you blog—it will help the internal linking structure of your site, and help the search engines and users find on-topic posts.
Promoting Your Blog
Whenever you make a post in your blog, your blog software will attempt to ping certain sites to let them know that you just updated your blog. There are many blog ping services out there, including Ping-O-Matic and Pingoat. Your blog software can be configured to ping sites automatically, and I’ve posted a list for WordPress of ping services on by blog (http://www.corporatewebsitemarketing.info/cwm/WordPress-ping-list). If your blog is new or you would like to get some more links, you can submit your blog to blog directories as well as other sites that will list your blog (don’t forget to submit to DMOZ.org, Yahoo! Directory, and the Best of the Web Blog Directory). About.com has a great article about promoting a blog (http://weblogs.about.com/cs/blogpromotions/a/promoteblog.htm) and even Biz Stone has great tutorial about promoting your blog (http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1060). Lastly, don’t forget to turn on your blog’s RSS feed. And if you’re looking to promote your RSS feed, try searching your favorite search engine for “promote rss” to find a lot of good tutorials.
Promoting your blog is just like promoting a website—you need good spiderable content, links to your content, and you need to set up your blog software to take advantage of all the great features. There are also plugins that will help make blogging easier for all of us.
