The right search engine optimization(seo) strategy

The right strategy is crucial to the success of your search engine optimization activities.

Search engine users are some of the most qualified and motivated visitors to your web site you will ever have. After all, they have taken the initiative to hunt for online resources on a certain topic. And then they clicked your link to learn more.

However, getting listed in a search engine doesn't do you much good if you're number 415 of 1,259,000 search results. Surprisingly, it doesn't even help you much if you're result number 11. Most search engines display 10 results on the first page, and relatively few searchers click through to look at the second page.

Make sure your web site will get the best possible search engine rankings and you'll get as many visitors as possible. High rankings contribute greatly to the success of your Internet business.

The key to high search engine rankings is to do the right things in the right order:

1. Find the right keywords for your web site.
2. Optimize your web pages for these keywords so that they can get high search engine rankings.
3. Submit your web pages to all important search engines and directories so that web surfers can find you.
4. Get links from other web sites and make sure that these links contain your keywords.
5. Track the results.

Technorati Tags: seo,strategy,search engine,ranking

The importance of valid HTML code

Many webmasters overlook a very important aspect of web site promotion: the validity of the HTML code.

What is valid HTML code?

Most web pages are written in HTML. As for every language, HTML has its own grammar, vocabulary and syntax, and every document written in HTML is supposed to follow these rules.

Like any language, HTML is constantly changing. As HTML has become a relative complex language, it's very easy to make mistakes. HTML code that is not following the official rules is called invalid HTML code.

Why is valid HTML code important?

Search engines have to parse the HTML code of your web site to find the relevant content. If your HTML code contains errors, search engines might not be able to find everything on the page.

Search engine crawler programs obey the HTML standard. They only can index your web site if it is compliant to the HTML standard. If there's a mistake in your web page code, they might stop crawling your web site and they might lose what they've collected so far because of the error.

Although most major search engines can deal with minor errors in HTML code, a single missing bracket in your HTML code can be the reason if your web page cannot be found in search engines.

If you don't close some tags properly, or if some important tags are missing, search engines might ignore the complete content of that page.

How can you check the validity of your HTML code?

Connect to an official HTML validator that will check the code of your web pages.

Although not all HTML errors will cause problems for your search engine rankings, some of them can keep web spiders from indexing your web pages.

Valid HTML code makes it easier for search engine spiders to index your site so you should make sure that at least the biggest mistakes in your HTML code are corrected.

Technorati Tags: importance,valid,html,code,web,seo

Search engine spiders and your web site

Are you sure that search engines understand your web site? Search engines see your web pages with different eyes than web surfers.

A web page that looks great to the human eye can be totally meaningless to search engines. For example, search engines cannot read the text on the images of your web site, and many don't understand web languages such as JavaScript or CSS.

If you have a great looking web site that is meaningless to search engines, you won't be able to achieve high search engine rankings with that web site - no matter how good and interesting your web site content is.

In general, search engines cannot see content that is presented in the following file formats:

• images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.)
• Flash movies, flash banners, etc.
• JavaScript and other script languages
• other multimedia file formats

Some search engines can index some of these file formats but in general, it's very difficult to obtain high search engine rankings if your main web site content is presented only in these formats.

Search engines need text to index your web site. They cannot know what's written on your GIF or JPEG images or in your Flash movies. If you use a lot of images on your web site, you should also create some web pages that contain a lot of text.

If you want to find out how search engines see your web site, you have to use a search engine spider simulator tool. A search engine spider simulator tool emulates the software programs search engines use to index your web site. They show you what elements of your web site are visible to search engines.

That allows you to quickly find out whether your web site lacks information that search engines need to properly index your web site.

Technorati Tags: search engine,spider,emulator,web,site,seo

How link popularity can help your search engine rankings

If you have optimized your web page for high search engine rankings and it still doesn't get better listings, it is very likely that your web site has low link popularity.

Link popularity is a very important factor for all major search engines. If your web site doesn't have good link popularity, it is very difficult to get good search engine rankings.

Note that link popularity alone is not enough. The content of your web site is also important so that search engines know what your web site is about.

A combination of optimized pages and high link popularity will bring your web site to the top of the search engine results.

What exactly is link popularity?

Link popularity refers to the total number of links that a search engine has found for your web page. The more web sites link to your web page, the higher the link popularity of your page. High link popularity contributes to a high search engine ranking.

The idea behind the link popularity concept is simple. The more other web sites link to your web site, the more important your site must be. Other sites wouldn't link to your site if there wasn't something interesting on your site or if your web site didn't contain any special content.

It's nearly impossible to manipulate link popularity. Previous ranking algorithms that took META keywords or similar factors into account have been quickly abused to mislead the search engines. On the other side, it's very difficult to manipulate the number of links that point to a site.

That's why link popularity is now one of the most important factors for search engines when they rank a web page.

However, you cannot get high link popularity by submitting your web site to thousands of FFA (free for all) link pages. Not all links are considered equal by the search engines. It does matter who links to you and how they link to you.

Not all links are considered equal

The more web sites link to your web site, the higher your link popularity. However, not all links are equal. Some links count more than others. Links from important web sites have a greater effect on your link popularity and your search engine rankings.

A link from www.Yahoo.com to your web site has more weight than a link from a small private web page. A link from a web site with high link popularity is better than a link from an unknown web site.

It's also important that the web site that's linking to you has a similar topic as your web site. Imagine that you sell shoes on your web site. A link from another web site that is all about shoes will count much more than a link from a web site that links to all kind of web sites.

Finally, it's important how the link to your site looks like. For example, one of your important keywords might be "brown leather shoes".

The link

<a href="http://www.domain.com">Brown leather shoes</a>

leads to much better search engine rankings for the keyword "brown leather shoes" than the following link

<a href="http://www.domain.com">Smith and Partners</a>

By the way, many people think that they can increase their link popularity by submitting their web site address to FFA (free for all) link pages and link farms (Web sites that link to all kind of web sites). This doesn't work.

More and more search engines recognize FFA pages and link farms and choose to ignore these pages. Usually, submissions to FFA pages are a waste of time that only results in many spam email messages.

In addition, you should avoid services that promise you 2000 links to your site within a week or so. If they link to you at all, these 2000 links are of poor quality or they don't have a similar topic as your web site.

Use common sense. Offers that sound too good to be true probably aren't true.

Summary:

• try to get links from important web sites
• try to get link texts that contain your important keywords
• don't use FFA or link farm pages
• don't use services that promise lots of links within days
• focus on quality links, not on quantity

How to find good potential link partners

As explained above, it's important who links to your site. web sites that have a similar topic as your site are more important than web sites with different topics.

In addition, if you can convince web sites with a similar topic to link to your site, you'll also get targeted traffic from these sites.

People who visit your topic partner sites are usually interested in what you have to offer. They are more likely to come to your site and to buy something. It's the quality of the traffic that counts, not the quantity.

Conclusion

Building a good link popularity requires some work but the results will pay for it. Link popularity is already one of the most important factor for search engines to rank web sites.

The sooner you start with your linking campaign, the better the results for your business.

Technorati Tags: link popularity,seo,search engine,ranking

Keep customers on your site with custom 404 error pages

You've probably seen many "404 not found" pages when surfing the web. A "404 not found" page is the page that comes up when someone tries to access a web page that doesn't exist.

This usually happens when someone types a wrong URL or follows a link to a page that does not exist. A typical 404 error page looks like this:

HTTP 404 Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.

The exact wording of this error may vary, but it is normally unintuitive and unfriendly. It is unlikely that the person explores your site further.

People who come to a "404 not found" web page are usually lost visitors. These visitors don't see your web site information and they cannot buy your products.

A custom 404 error page keeps visitors on your web site

Most web hosts allow you to create a custom "404 not found" page. If you haven't done it yet, you should create a custom 404 error page now.

A custom 404 error page is an easy way to keep visitors on your web site. It also allows you to redirect your visitors to the pages of your choice.

For example, you could use the following HTML code for your own 404 error page:

<html>

<head>

<TITLE>Sorry</TITLE>

<meta http-equiv=refresh content="2;URL=http://www.YourWebsiteName.com">

</head>

<body>

Sorry, this page doesn't exist. You'll be redirected to our index page.

</body>

</html>

This HTML code simply redirects people to the index page of your web site so that they can find what they're looking for (replace "www.YourWebSiteName.com with the URL of your own web site).

You could also create a custom 404 page that tells your visitors that the page is not available anymore. It also makes sense to give your visitors some choices.

A custom 404 error page is important to the success of your web site

People often mistype URLs and some web sites have links to non-existent pages. This can happen when redesigning a web site or just through typographical errors.

With a custom 404 error page, you make it easier for end users to find where they want to go on your web site.

Most web space providers allow custom 404 error pages. Ask your web space provider how you can create a 404 error page for your web site.

Technorati Tags: 404,error,page,url,seo

How to rank well with Flash sites

Flash movies are a popular way to make web sites more compelling. They are useful if you want to impress your web site visitors or if you offer web design services.

Unfortunately, if you use Flash movies, or if you even design your complete web site based on the Flash technology, your odds of getting listed in the search engines are greatly reduced.

Search engines can only "see" pure text. They are not able to recognize text on an image or text that appears as a graphic in a Flash movie.

Google advises on its webmaster guidelines page: "If fancy features such as [...] Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.".

So how can you achieve high search engine rankings in spite of Flash contents?

First of all, you should re-consider using Flash on your web site. Keep in mind that many visitors still use slow dial-up connections to access web pages. They don't like to wait 1-2 minutes only to see your company logo fancy animated. Your Flash movies must carry invaluable information to the visitors, otherwise they will be disappointed.

Entry pages that only show your company logo are becoming more and more annoying to users. Using web pages like company brochures only show that your company didn't get the whole Internet idea.

Keep in mind that not everyone has installed the Flash player. Always add a link to a web page that contains the same important information as found in the Flash movie in plain text.

For these reasons, not using Flash or building a duplicate site without Flash are the easiest ways to make sure that your web site visitors and the search engines can access your web site.

If you really must use Flash on your web site, the following tips can help you getting your Flash contents indexed by the search engines:

• Provide links to alternate pages that contain a lot of text and some keywords that the search engines can index.
• Place some text above and below your Flash movie that contain your keywords. Along with your title and maybe your meta tags, this gives the search engines some contents to index.
• If you embed the Flash movie in your HTML code, use your most important keywords in the movie filename using the HTML tags <param name="movie" value="movie-filename.swf"> and <param name="src" value="movie-filename.swf>.
• You can use the <object standby="your message to show while loading"> attribute to include some text that is displayed while the Flash movie is being loaded. In addition, you can use the <object title="your movie title"> attribute to include a keyword-rich movie title.
• Use the <noembed> tag to provide text for web browsers which don't support the Flash plugin. Use it to describe the contents of the Flash movie as search engines can index that description.
• You may want make your Flash movie transparent and place it "over" your web page using CSS layers. However, some search engines might consider this spamming.
• Some search engines offer pay for inclusion programs that guarantee the inclusion of your web page regardless of the contents. Note that these search engines still need text to index.
• You could provide an alternative, "pure text" web page solely to search engine crawler programs. However, this technique is called "cloaking" and search engines don't like it (click here for details).
• Link from other pages of your web site to your Flash page with a keyword-rich link text.
• Use the Macromedia Flash Search Engine SDK to convert a Flash file's text and links into HTML for search engine indexing.

Macromedia, the developers of the Flash technology, have recognized the difficulties in getting Flash contents indexed. For this reason, they have developed an accessibility kit that helps you to embed pure text and links in the movie file.

Macromedia hopes that search engines will learn over time to read the embedded text.

Flash is a trade mark of Macromedia Corp. You can find out more about Flash here.

Technorati Tags: rank,well,flash,macromedia,seo,site

Can SEO companies guarantee rankings?

Some SEO (search engine optimization) companies guarantee that you get a special search engine position if you let them do the work for you. Actually, this is not possible. No company can guarantee search engine listings.

If a company makes such promises, take a closer look at the guarantee. The catch is often that the company selects the search terms. You'll be listed for obscure search terms that nobody searches for. If you have a unique company name or a unique product name, it's relatively easy to get high search engine rankings for that term.

The only way to get high search engine rankings and staying there is good web page content and playing by the rules.

Technorati Tags: seo,company,ranking

Filter words and stop words

Google and other big search engines ignore common words such as 'the', 'of', 'where', as well as certain single digits and single letters. These words are called "filter words". They are ignored because they tend to slow down a search without improving the results.

Of course, every search engine has its own list of filter words. We've found out that the following words seem to be ignored by most search engines:

a, about, an, and, are, as, at, be, by, from, how, i, in, is, it, of, on, or, that, the, this, to, was, we, what, when, where, which, with

What does this mean to your site?

Search engines consider keywords in the title, in the body text and in link texts of a web page as an important ranking criteria.

Be careful when you choose your keywords for the title and the rest of your web page. If your web page title contains a list of filter words you won't get any results. You might also dilute the effectiveness of your other keywords if you include too many filter words in the title.

Many search engines recommend limiting the number of letters in the title and in the meta tags. If your web page title or the meta tags contain too many filter words, you might reach the character limit before your important keywords begin.

Some words can get you banned on search engines

While filter words might dilute the effectiveness of your other keywords, some words might get your web page banned on search engines. These words are called stop words.

Adult words and phrases that contain sexual content are the most common stop words. However, some search engines build custom stop word lists to penalize web sites that use "keyword stuffing". Some sites use the same keyword over and over on their pages to get a high rank for that keyword on search engines, even if it is not related to their content.

Of course, search engines try to find those sites and they penalize web pages that use keyword stuffing. Unfortunately, some sites are penalized although their webmasters didn't try to spam the search engines just because they use a keyword too many times.

That's why keyword analysis and the right keyword density is very important for a successful web site. If the keyword density is too low, you won't get a good ranking, if it's too high, your site might get accused of keyword stuffing.

Summary

1. Use your most important keywords at the beginning of the title, meta tags, link texts and body text.
2. Avoid using filter words to increase the effectiveness of your keywords.
3. Make sure that your web pages have the right keyword density and don't contain stop words.

The right keyword mix on your web pages will help you to improve your ranking on all important search engines.

Technorati Tags: filter,keywords,stop,seo

Ethical search engine optimization

Some search engine optimization companies and software developers use unethical tricks and techniques to artificially boost the search engine rankings of a web site. This dilutes the quality of search results and the accuracy of search results becomes questionable.

For this reason, the search engines are continuously trying to trace out the spam techniques which webmasters might be using and penalize or ban them.

They continue to reconstruct their algorithms to prevent spammers from flooding the results page with irrelevant or low quality content.

If you use a web site promotion tool that uses these unethical tricks and techniques, you'll put your web business at severe risk.

 

Search engines consider the following search engine optimization techniques as SPAM.

• automatically generated doorway pages
• cloaking and false redirects
• keyword stuffing
• hidden text or hidden links
• pages loaded with irrelevant words
• duplicated content on multiple pages
• misspelling of well-known web sites
• unrelated and centralized link farms
• other methods that try to trick search engines

You might get short term results with these techniques but it's very likely that your site will be banned from search engines if you use one of these techniques. You'll put your web business at severe risk if you use one of these methods.

Ethical search engine optimization is about everyone winning

Ethical search engine optimization leads to a symbiotic relationship:

• Search engines: They win as they are provided with pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information that their visitors search for.
• Searchers: They win as they are getting what they ask for from the search engines. They search for "green widgets" and get a page about green widgets.
• Web site owners: They win as they are getting quality visitors who are interested in what their web site has to offer.
Technorati Tags: ethical,searc,engine,optimisation,web,seo,site

Yahoo Patent Filing Sheds Light On PageRank

Finds fault with Google's Secret Sauce

As complex as Google's PageRank may be, search experts at Yahoo seem to think it's not complex enough. Based on patent filings, Yahoo is dabbling in ranking algorithms that incorporate more user behavior data in advance of the company's next run at toppling Google's haloed relevance.

Seeing will be believing when it happens, of course, as Google is highly secretive about how its search engine calculates PageRank. If history is any indication, they're already way ahead on behavioral factoring.

Nonetheless, Yahoo can afford the best search engineers in the business (if they can get them before Google does, anyway) and the patent filings shed some light on how PageRank is currently calculated and ways it might be improved in the future.

Bill Slawski, Director of Search Marketing at KeyRelevance, goes into painstaking detail of Yahoo's user data challenges at his SEObytheSea blog. Patent language, especially when dealing with algorithms, can be confusing and dense, so we'll just highlight a few interesting points and leave the lexicographical deciphering to you.

Some Yahoo assumptions about PageRank and flaws associated:

• Internal and external links are often weighed equally even though internal links can be less reliable and more self-promotional. Some links, like disclaimer links, are rarely followed.
• PageRank ignores that webpages are often purchased and repurposed, decay or become less valuable over time at variable rates.
• Current calculations, like TrustRank, are engineered more to combat webspam than to reflect actual user behavior.
• Sometimes PageRank deals with links in bulk, aggregating according host or domain, also known as blocked PageRank.

What Yahoo plans to do about it:

• Measure link weight – influenced by the frequency with which users follow a link
• Note when links are ignored and users leave (teleport) to another page of their choosing
• Calculate the probability that a user stops and reads a webpage rather than views it and moves on.
• Incorporate user data into the algorithm – "User Sensitive PageRank could reflect "the navigational behavior of the user population with regard to documents, pages, sites, and domains visited, and links selected."
• Personalize PageRank based on demographic information – age, gender, income, user location)
• Emphasize recent information
• Weigh anchor text more heavily – the patent filing calls anchor text "one of the most useful features used in ranking retrieved Web search results"
Technorati Tags: seo,yahoo,sem,search,google