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Monday, September 14, 2009

Saturday, November 29, 2008

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? What does SEO optimize?

Natural search results are the organic results that you receive when you enter a keyword, term, or phrase into a search index. When you optimize your web site for proper SEO, you choose what terms best describe your product and services, then optimize your site for those words or phrases. When you do this correctly, your site will show up higher then other sites for those keywords or terms in the natural search results.

You also have the option of paying for search results in the sponsored section of search engines. The problem with this is, you have to pay for each search engine individually. You bid for terms, like an auction. So some phrases and words are $15 dollars, while others are .10 cents. Plus when you pay for results you either pay per impression, click, or acquisition. Pay-per-impression is paying for so many views of your ad. Pay-per-click is every time someone clicks on your ad. Pay-per-acquisition is when you reach your goal, so every time someone fills out a form or buys something. The third (pay per acquisition) is the hardest to find, and often the most expensive. Pay-per-click is the way Google works, and pay-per-impression is an option on sites like facebook. Where you can pay for every 1,000 times your ad shows up on someones screen.

In SEO, all your traffic is FREE, after paying for a specialist to optimize your site. In the long run though, it's more efficient to have great content that is relevant to customers and fully worthy your time and money to just hire someone to help you with your seo and copy writing.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Linking Pyramids

Google and many other sites DO NOT want you to have hidden links, trick search bots, or have linking pyramids. So in an effort to help everyone understand the value of GOOD Search Engine Optimization, I have attached a few other posts on these topics and how to steer clear of this bad strategy before Google Black Lists you. If you don't believe me I have attached the article on the subject that comes straight from the horses mouth (so to speak) ...from Google that is:

Link schemes

Article by Google Webmaster Tools.

Your site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

Links intended to manipulate PageRank
Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page's visitors?

It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest. In addition, submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Once you've made your changes and are confident that your site no longer violates our guidelines, submit your site for reconsideration.

If you'd like to discuss this with Google, or have ideas for how we can better communicate with you about it, please post in our webmaster discussion forum.

Pyramid Linking Strategies

Two days ago I posted a teaser on this topic where I said "So what does one do to prevent ones "network of sites" from being stripped of its link passing rights? Well, be smart about how you link and why you link. Think about how most sites naturally obtain links and go from it from that angle. ". (I wonder if it is appropriate to quote myself?...) Unfortunately I won't be able to disclose the name person I met with this past Monday, the individual seems to be a little worried that Google is reading this site and will devalue his linking methods manually. Having said that, this person's daily focus and energy goes towards link building strategies.

During our conversation we discussed how he goes about building links for his clients. He tends not to go the paid route, but he said he had done so many times in the past and will do so in the future. His real reason for meeting me, I think, was to exchange links (please dont email me to exchange links, I do not participate in any link exchanges).

We then got into how he has been developing a network of portals of which contain links to many quality sites and his clients sites. None of these sites directly link to each other, they all link in a triangular fashion. For example, one might create Site A, B and C. Site A will link to Site B, Site B will link to Site C and site C will link to site A. You will never find Site A link to Site B AND Site B link to Site A.

To effectively implement such a strategy, this person has created and is creating "portal sites." The portal sites will be on specific topics and contain links to high-level ODP and Yahoo! directory sites, you won't normally find deep-level sites listed in the portal sites. He then adds links from the portal to his clients sites that relate to that topic. So a portal on computers will have links to the top computer sites in ODP and Yahoo! directories and also to his client's sites.

He then tries to get free and paid links to the portal sites that are on-topic to those sites. As you can imagine, it is much easier getting links to a portal site then it would be to an e-commerce type of site.

Now he has these portal sites with quality links from on topic sites. He then links out to his on-topic client sites from the portal. He might link a portal to an other portal but never link a client site back to the same portal. This way he starts to build this complex pyramid linking structure.

The only complaint I have about the way he is doing this is that it is currently not all managed in some type of unified linking database application. As the portals and linking schemes grow, it will continue to become more complex. He is managing now but I wonder for how long. I tend to be bias, because anything I do, is done with efficiency in mind through the use of Web technologies.

For more information on this topic and more relating to your SEO visit:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Go Daddy and Google offer ...

MORE INFORMATION ON WEB STANDARDS FROM GOOGLE:

Webmaster Guidelines

Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise penalized. If a site has been penalized, it may no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites.

When your site is ready:

Have other relevant sites link to yours.
Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
Submit a Sitemap as part of our Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.
Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Design and content guidelines

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
Make sure that your TITLE tags and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
Check for broken links and correct HTML.
If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Technical guidelines

Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.
Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you don't accidentally block the Googlebot crawler. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn how to instruct robots when they visit your site. You can test your robots.txt file to make sure you're using it correctly with the robots.txt analysis tool available in Google Webmaster Tools.
If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system can export your content so that search engine spiders can crawl your site.
Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.

Quality guidelines

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.

If you believe that another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines, please report that site at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.

Quality guidelines - basic principles

Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."
Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
Don't send automated queries to Google.
Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords.
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

If you determine that your site doesn't meet these guidelines, you can modify your site so that it does and then submit your site for reconsideration.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Top 100(+) Steps to Check Off For Great SEO/SEM/Social Media Campaigns

Keywords in title tag
2. Keywords in urls
3. Keyword density in document text (no more than 10% per page)
4. Keywords in anchor text (especially on inbound links)
It is not enough just to have a lot of backlinks, it is the Quality of backlinks along with the Quantity that help you rank better in Search Engines.

A backlink could be considered as a Quality Backlink if
1. It links to your website with the keyword (keyphrase) that you are trying to optimize for.
2. The Theme of the backlinking website is the same as your website.

5.Keywords in headers
6. Keywords in beginning of document
7.Keywords in alt tags
8.Keywords in metatags (more for yahoo and msn)
9. Keyword proximity (dont have them all right next to each other in the same paragraph
10. Keyword phrases
11. Secondary Keywords
12. Keyword stemming (more important for other languages that have root words that branch off for meaning)
13. Synonyms
14. Keyword Mistypes in metadata or ppc (not on the site!)
15.Keyword dilution -avoid unrelated keywords, try to be as specific as possible, don't go excessive on all similar keywords
16. keyword stuffing (10% and over for keywords risks getting you banned from search engines)
17.Anchor text of inbound links
18. Links from similar sites
19. Links from .edu and .gov sites
20. Backlinks
21. anchor text on internal links
22. text around the anchor that is relevant
23. Age of inbound links (older the better)
24. Linking directories (yahoo directory etc. careful not to over do it to fast)
25. Number of other outgoing links on a referal site's page (fewer the better)
26. Named Anchors
27. Don't have a ton of outgoing links on one page (max 100)
28. Don't link spam (lots of links from one site)
29. cross linking (pyramid of links or circle or them)
30. metatag description, keywords, language
31. metatag refresh (better to use 301 redirect code)
32. unique content
33. frequently update content (blogs help)
34. keyword size, formatting
35. age of documents
36. shorter pages
37. poor coding and design hurts seo
38. illegal or copyrighted content can get you kicked off search engines
39. invisible text is bad
40. cloaking is bad (showing search engines one version of a page and people another)
41. creating pages to trick spiders into thinking you page is more relevant than it really is, is bad.
42. duplicate content is bad
43. java script needs to be used wisely because spiders can not see most of it
44. images in text will not be seen and needs alt tags
45. podcast and videos are good, but need tagged
46. images instead of text links need tags
47. frames need to be avoided
48. siders can not see flash
49. no fully flash home pages
50. keyword rich urls
51. site accessibility is important
52. site maps are also important and make it easier for spiders to navigate them especially if they are google formatted
53.the bigger the site the better
54. the older the better
55. having a theme is bes
56. not barrying your site in directories
57.having a seperate domain from having desaraev.blogspot is best
58. dot com is better than .ws or .biz but .org and .edu or .com are best
59. hyphens in words that are in urls make them easier to read
60. shorter urls are nice and look less like spam
61. ip address is important your not on a blacklisted or free domain
62. adsense doesnt boost your rankings or hurt it but it is distracting to consumers (and will give you money while giving you competitors the opportunity to advertise on your site)
63. hosting down time hurts you because its time where your missing being indexed
64. dynamic urls are bad spiders prefer static urls example of dynamic: php?categoryid=1&productid=10 vs. /product-categoryid-1-productid-10.htm
65. session id should not be used by information that needs to be indexed by spiders
66. keep robot.txt bans to a min.
67. properly placed redirects (301 and 302) are good but when not applied properly, redirects can hurt a lot – the target page might not open, or worse – a redirect can be regarded as a black hat technique, when the visitor is immediately taken to a different page.
68. proper 404 codes
69. microsites (on different ip addresses) are best
70. properly indexed and tagged .pdfs are good
71. submit your site to search engines
72. web pr is good
73. links from all your ACTIVE social networks, blogs, and microblogs
74. submit your site to search directories, forums, and special sites:
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
75. commenting on other peoples blogs in your field and adding your link is GOOD
76. Managing online business development campaigns
77. submit site maps: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318
78. no "shadow domains" or deceptive redirects
79. Nav. that points to main areas of the site with subpages after
80. Use a text browser like Lynx to examine your site to see what spiders will see (firefox web tools works too): If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
81. Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
82. If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system can export your content so that search engine spiders can crawl your site.
83. The more people that go to your site and stay on it for a period of time the better for PageRank, so email campaigns that encourage lots of visitors are good, but consistant page visits like this is better (so give users a reason to continually come back to use your pages and content) such as blogs, shopping, weekly tips, etc.
84. Affiliates are ok, if they are unique and add value (cj is good)
85.If you're selling something, try to make it easy for a visitor to buy something from every page.
86.If your site carries a few "flagship" products or articles, make sure those are promoted on every page.
87. How to optimize flash: http://www.hochmanconsultants.com/articles/seo-friendly-flash.shtml
88. competitor analysis
89. keyword research
90. negative keywords
91. google analytics
92. msn, yahoo, ask, google (the four big ones)
93. find out goals, objectives, who is the consumer
94. tag all images on social sites
95. find additional keywords from sites like flickr (what would the consumer tag your product as?)
96. Submit client to social bookmarking
97. submit consumer websites to google products via xml
98. social media integration (facebook groups etc.)
99. hta access file
100. microblogs/optimize blogs
101. Google/Mapquest link and directions
102. Who is the consumer or their target audience
103. google products

    * Google Webmaster Guidelines: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769
    * Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web.: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=70897

Questions we should ALWAYS answer (even google recommends them):

SEO include:

    * Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
    * Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
    * Do you offer any online marketing services to complement your organic search business?
    * What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?
    * What's your experience in my industry?
    * How long have you been in business?
   *Examples of bad practices we will not do: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html

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