Most companies today take advantage of the internet as a major marketing and information dissemination tool. To maximize the use of the internet, companies rely on search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that their websites and web pages muster enough traffic. Although search engine optimization aims to have websites at the top of almost all search engine result pages (SERPs), it’s quite common to see search engine optimization focusing on major search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo.
--- Giant Search Engines Targeting ---
It is hard to do search engine optimization resulting to a good ranking in almost all search engines since every search engine relies on different basis and categories on ranking sites. In other words, different search engines make use of different algorithms to determine every site’s importance. Criteria that search engines set for result ranking vary from search engine to search engine. As a result most SEO service providers opt to maximize sites for search engines that can provide the most ideal volume of traffic.
--- Google-centric SEO is Short-Sighted SEO ---
Most SEO’s would basically focus their efforts to maximize websites relative to Google because it is the most commonly used search engine. But if you take a closer look into the matter, you will conclude that disregarding the searches done through Yahoo could mean a considerable amount of lost traffic. Although Yahoo does not process as much searches as Google, it still consists a good fraction of the searches done on the internet.
--- Balancing Google and Yahoo SEO ---
Both Yahoo and Google depend on keyword density to rank a website. The only difference is that to optimize your site with the Yahoo search engine, a higher keyword frequency is required. Keyword density is more important a factor for Yahoo than it is for Google; although you don’t need to use the same word or group of words to attain the ideal keyword density. Yahoo will consider synonyms and other word variants that are of the same or related meaning to the given keyword to make up the keyword density calculation. Even the plural from of the keyword is still counted when considering keyword density.
Taking the keyword factor into consideration, though, Google and Yahoo possess a very different approach in keyword density. Since Yahoo is very much keyword-based, you may fear that stuffing your site with too many keywords would endanger your site ranking with Google. However, this is not really the case.
It is true that Google may turn its back on your site because of overwhelming keyword count. But as stated above, your site does not need to contain the same keyword form to attain the keyword density for Yahoo. Taking advantage of the fact that Yahoo counts synonyms, plural forms and variants in assessing keyword density, your site could justify both Yahoo’s and Google’s keyword requirement.
--- Yahoo SEO Special ---
Content is very important to attain a good ranking with the Yahoo search engine. This refers to both quantity and quality of your site’s contents. Be mindful of relevance of your site’s contents to a given keyword and at the same time make sure that your site is full of it. Adding relevant contents from time to time would also be a good strategy to take the top spots with the Yahoo search engine results pages.
Aside from content, format should not be taken for granted if you want to have Yahoo on your side. Unlike Google’s web spiders, Yahoo’s bot doesn’t dig deeper into your sites pages to index them. It is therefore very necessary for you to create a very good site map to guide this very lazy animal!
And lastly, even though Yahoo is very much into your site’s content when it comes to ranking in the SERPs, don't forget that inbound links are still very important. Aside from making sure that your site does well with Google when it comes to links, Yahoo will also need the help it gets from inbound links to index your pages.
8/20/09
@Flash And SEO
How to optimize Flash for search engines
Many web pages nowadays are embellished with Flash animation products, offered by Adobe. Flash technology allows, in a very simple manner, to insert small animated, vector-based drawings into your web pages.
Of course, these animations have some influence on the way your site is "seen" and indexed by the search engines. The problem of Flash Search Engine Optimization arises, which is a very serious matter in terms of conversion and web site profitability.
What are Flash Animations?
First, let's see what the structure of a Flash file is. When you create an animation, you get a file, named, for example, banner.fla. The ".fla" represents the Flash format extension. In order to display this file in a web page, you need to export it in Shockwave Format (extension .swf). It is this file, once exported, that you will be using for your web site.
If the animation you have created contains text, it won't be taken into account by most of the search engines, as they don't pay much attention to this format. Still, there are search engines (e.g. Google, dir.com, FAST Search) that know how to read the text inserted in the Flash animations. A web page (or even a site!) that is built entirely in Flash will therefore pass almost "unseen" by search engines, which index, almost exclusively, text content in HTML format. Nevertheless, the HTML file that launches the Flash animation will be crawled by search engine's spiders.
Why use Flash for Sites?
It is not a secret for anyone that search engines don't really like sites that are built using Flash exclusively. These sites rarely contain enough relevant text to allow a good indexing. Above that, not all spiders can read the content of a .swf file. Flash is used though every now and then for mini-sites or for campaign sites.
Flash is interesting for at least two reasons:
• It maximizes the animation's impact, which is appreciated in the Internet interactive and visual environment. Also, leaving aside the size of the files, it is worth mentioning that Flash (mainly vector-based) is still "lighter" than videos (not interactive) or simple pixel photos (not animated).
• It can be combined successfully with other technologies (e.g. PHP, MySQL, XML, images, video, sound, etc.). It is therefore perfectly possible to create a dynamic web site in flash that also has content.
A Flash animation placed on a web page has certainly more significance than a simple image. People like to be visually stimulated, and this is the perfect instrument to attract prospects and eventually convince them to buy a product. Perception is everything. Marketers want to offer a great looking package, and customers want to receive it.
Many web pages nowadays are embellished with Flash animation products, offered by Adobe. Flash technology allows, in a very simple manner, to insert small animated, vector-based drawings into your web pages.
Of course, these animations have some influence on the way your site is "seen" and indexed by the search engines. The problem of Flash Search Engine Optimization arises, which is a very serious matter in terms of conversion and web site profitability.
What are Flash Animations?
First, let's see what the structure of a Flash file is. When you create an animation, you get a file, named, for example, banner.fla. The ".fla" represents the Flash format extension. In order to display this file in a web page, you need to export it in Shockwave Format (extension .swf). It is this file, once exported, that you will be using for your web site.
If the animation you have created contains text, it won't be taken into account by most of the search engines, as they don't pay much attention to this format. Still, there are search engines (e.g. Google, dir.com, FAST Search) that know how to read the text inserted in the Flash animations. A web page (or even a site!) that is built entirely in Flash will therefore pass almost "unseen" by search engines, which index, almost exclusively, text content in HTML format. Nevertheless, the HTML file that launches the Flash animation will be crawled by search engine's spiders.
Why use Flash for Sites?
It is not a secret for anyone that search engines don't really like sites that are built using Flash exclusively. These sites rarely contain enough relevant text to allow a good indexing. Above that, not all spiders can read the content of a .swf file. Flash is used though every now and then for mini-sites or for campaign sites.
Flash is interesting for at least two reasons:
• It maximizes the animation's impact, which is appreciated in the Internet interactive and visual environment. Also, leaving aside the size of the files, it is worth mentioning that Flash (mainly vector-based) is still "lighter" than videos (not interactive) or simple pixel photos (not animated).
• It can be combined successfully with other technologies (e.g. PHP, MySQL, XML, images, video, sound, etc.). It is therefore perfectly possible to create a dynamic web site in flash that also has content.
A Flash animation placed on a web page has certainly more significance than a simple image. People like to be visually stimulated, and this is the perfect instrument to attract prospects and eventually convince them to buy a product. Perception is everything. Marketers want to offer a great looking package, and customers want to receive it.
8/16/09
@Search Engine Friendly Domain Name
Having your own domain name is now become so important. It is not only representing professional and credibility of your company, but it is also make your url being indexed by search engine much easier.
There is another important role of domain name that being forgot by web masters.
Search engine friendly domain name is influencing in search engine placement. If you do want to get the top in search engine, then name your domain with this kind of domain name:
1) Use domain name that represents prior keyword of your site. This is very important step in optimizing your web site. At least, this step has 2 positive impacts on your site:
# Your domain name will be much easier to be being remembered by visitors, since your domain name represents prior keyword that they want to know.
# You will have good positioning on search engine because url has it's important roles for search engines. This kind of url is also called with url-keyword.
For details about url-keyword, you can read our free guidance in SEO-ing web site.
This kind of url will also influence PR of your site, since another web sites which want to link to you are forced to enter your prior keyword as url in texts-link on their web page.
2) Abbreviate some words with numeric:
Eample: 2 = two
4 = for
This will also makes your url in good positioning on few search engines that sorts url based on initial-numeric domain name.
3) Make your domain name as short as possible. Long domain name will only makes your url difficult to remember and easily being forget by visitors, so this should be avoided. In the opposite, using short url-keyword will make your url memorize-able.
4) Use Popular TLD only as much as you can. The reason why it is recommended is, because popular TLD not only will make it easy to remember, but it also represents credibility of your business.
5) If your url consists more than a single word, then use minus (-) sign as the separator. This will avoid misspelling, mistype and make ease in spelling.
There is another important role of domain name that being forgot by web masters.
Search engine friendly domain name is influencing in search engine placement. If you do want to get the top in search engine, then name your domain with this kind of domain name:
1) Use domain name that represents prior keyword of your site. This is very important step in optimizing your web site. At least, this step has 2 positive impacts on your site:
# Your domain name will be much easier to be being remembered by visitors, since your domain name represents prior keyword that they want to know.
# You will have good positioning on search engine because url has it's important roles for search engines. This kind of url is also called with url-keyword.
For details about url-keyword, you can read our free guidance in SEO-ing web site.
This kind of url will also influence PR of your site, since another web sites which want to link to you are forced to enter your prior keyword as url in texts-link on their web page.
2) Abbreviate some words with numeric:
Eample: 2 = two
4 = for
This will also makes your url in good positioning on few search engines that sorts url based on initial-numeric domain name.
3) Make your domain name as short as possible. Long domain name will only makes your url difficult to remember and easily being forget by visitors, so this should be avoided. In the opposite, using short url-keyword will make your url memorize-able.
4) Use Popular TLD only as much as you can. The reason why it is recommended is, because popular TLD not only will make it easy to remember, but it also represents credibility of your business.
5) If your url consists more than a single word, then use minus (-) sign as the separator. This will avoid misspelling, mistype and make ease in spelling.
@A Comprehensive Guide For Beginners To Content Writing For Search Engine Optimization (Continued)
About the resources
Knowing the right information will certainly give you the right results. Knowing what people want and what they are searching for will be one of the keys to make it big in this business. One of the things that can help you acquire this information is through case studies, surveys and polls that can be found all over the internet. Most of these studies provide general demographic information about internet users. If you’re lucky enough (since it is discouraged), you might even stumble with information regarding the searching habits of different demographics.
Once you have decided to use particular information from the internet, make sure that it is from a reliable author or source. Incorrect and inaccurate data proliferates all over the internet and it happens that you may be misled by others to use them, so, see to it that the articles or studies you are about to use are made and conducted by certified educational institutions or known private companies so you will not have any problems about their authenticity.
Another effective source of information from the internet are pages which rank high among search engines especially those that are related to yours. Analyze and learn the effective things they have done to increase their PageRank and apply them to your work. You could also check out the pages of your top competitors, you might learn a lot from them but be careful not to copy their stuff as it is since they will be constantly checking out their competition. Copyright guidelines are finally catching up with those who replicate content, ending blacklisted by major search engines.
SEO forums are also helpful in guiding you about the latest trends in the Search Engine Optimization business. Experts usually crowd in these forums to discuss the tricks and trends of the business. Moreover, new updates and trends about Search Engine Algorithms and Technology can be found on these forums so it is highly advisable that you check out those forums. However, the forums might be a little too complicated for beginners as terms often become too technical to understand even by seasoned users.
About the words
Now let us go down to business! It is time to know what are the keywords and keyphrases you will use for your copy! The key words and phrases would be the ones that you will use and try to integrate throughout the whole copy. It would be the bait you place in the hook in order to attract and hopefully catch your potential customers.
First of all, you and your client should brainstorm together (face to face if possible) about the keywords and keyphrases you want to use for the copy. It is important that you brainstorm together so that you will be able to stay true to the brand and have an effective choice for use in the search engine optimization efforts. You could make use of different keyword tools found in the web such as Keyword Discovery, GoodKeywords, WordTracker, Overture, etc. (issues regarding their usability and effectiveness will be discussed separately). These tools can be downloaded or used directly over the internet should you choose to utilize it.
In choosing keyphrases or keywords remember to start with and use popular but “not-so-competitive” terms since it would be very difficult to compete with more established websites if you have just been starting. The above-mentioned tools will help you determine which key words or phrases you could use.
One word keywords are very difficult if not impossible to compete with as it would have a more general scope compared with keyphrases. For example, if you are trying to write content for a company selling educational toys, choosing a keyword like “toys” would be a stupid idea since search engines would give around one hundred million hits for that particular keyword, while changing it into keyphrase like “toys for students” or “educational toys” would only have hits of around five million. This means that the chance that a web searcher would actually go to your website would be 100,000,000:1 under the keyword “toys” while choosing the keyphrase “educational toys” means a chance of 5,000,000:1, greatly increasing your chance of being visited. Besides, customers are more likely to refine their searches since using or typing just one word searches would mean being bombarded with a lot of unwanted information than they need, costing more time and effort.
Your keywords should specifically target (1) the product or service that you are offering and (2) what people actually type whenever they use the search engines in looking for products and services like yours. A good example would be when writing content for a company selling kilns for bricks, you should not optimize for the keyword “kiln for bricks” if most people actually type “oven for bricks” when they are looking for such equipment. It is useless to optimize for the term kiln when most people opt to type oven since a few if none will be looking for the term kiln.
You should also identify and discover various words and terms which are closely related to your keyword or keyphrases. Some key-terms and keyphrases are so intimately intertwined with others that one group associates it with a particular field while another choose to associate it with something else. One good example would be Cosmetic Surgery. Cosmetic Surgery is a medical procedure, so, it can be regarded as something related with medicine and surgery, while it is also correct to say that it is related with cosmetics and beauty. Since the fields of medicine, surgery, cosmetics and beauty are popular fields, optimizing for both the cosmetic and the surgical aspect of the keyphrase Cosmetic Surgery would bring more keyword hits for searches from individuals of both parts of the spectrum.
Another thing to consider is to integrate local terminologies or equivalents of your products or services when optimizing with key words or phrases. An “elevator” in the US would be a “lift” in the UK, a “truck” in the US would be a “lorry” in the UK, and the list goes on. When trying to sell products or services for a huge demographically different society, you should optimize for both of the groups as each would tend to search for the more familiar local term. Better yet, you could create different sites for different demographic groups, replacing particular key words and phrases; enabling you to cater to both.
Moreover, it would be wise to consider placing regional information or regional key words or phrases. Integrating regional information along with keywords and keyphrases enables users who prefer more specified searches to visit your website. You would also benefit from the limited competition because of the more specified search. Most people looking for products and services in the internet would certainly prefer to find what they need locally, so adding local regional information would definitely be of great help to you and your potential client. Another benefit is that you could add another keyword, which is the regional information to your existing key word or key phrase. For example, instead of having just “plumbing services” add “Atlanta” before ‘plumbing services’. This would give you an edge over competitors as it would profoundly decrease your competition.
About the content
Now that you have the key words and phrases you would need its time to plan about the general thrust of the content, on what the content should be like.
Generally, the main idea of writing content is for it to be able to provide useful information for visitors in your site. You are primarily writing for the readers, the human visitors of your site, and about the products and services that you have to offer. Secondary to that idea is to provide the search engines information so they could properly and accurately index your site according to its proper category, so anyone who wants to look for something in particular, through the use of search engines, would eventually find what he needs. In other words, your content should be both customer-oriented and search engine friendly.
In order to do that, you need to plan properly on how to do your copywriting. The whole text should be able to give them what they need and want to know about the products and services you have. Hence, it is highly advisable that you read a lot of information about the subject product or service before you write the actual copy. The goal is to become extremely knowledgeable about the product, so you can explore all the possibilities and play with its strengths and weaknesses and write everything that is needed.
One important thing to remember is to write content that is unique. Copying content is not only plagiarism and cheating but is also a serious offense that could cause painful penalties under existing Copyright laws. More and more Intellectual Property Rights watch dogs are reporting cases of content stealing and have gained some grounds over the years. Major search engines are now penalizing sites which illegally acquire content from other sources. Penalties include permanently putting sites under a blacklist, sort of a “permanent not to contact sites” for crawlers. Lawsuits and cases about web content writing are now increasing day by day, with more countries enacting laws on Intellectual Property Rights. The risks are just too great if you plagiarize and copy content. So make sure that you quote or place endnotes when you choose to use parts of other’s content.
And lastly, your content should be written in plain, simple, and natural language so as not to destroy the natural flow of words as you write. Highly technical words and terms should be reserved for highly technical discussions, and should be discouraged for everyday internet use.
About the mood
You might be wondering what a section about mood is doing in a seo copywriting article, well, it certainly has a LOT to do about content writing. The mood of the reader would certainly affect the way he views a certain product or service. If you did not properly take care of the emotional side of your customer with your writing, consider him gone. Individual moods are affected by a lot of factors; although primarily it is internal, external factors could also affect his mood significantly and luckily what that individual reads is one of them.
First of all, you should be ‘in the mood’ for writing. Good copies are mostly written by writers who are either inspired or enlightened with what they are about to write. Content writers should make sure that they are in this special mood because the consequence of the opposite would be a very bad copy. A reader is also likely to be ‘drawn’ by an emphatic copy written superbly which would eventually end up making the reader get what you are offering.
One thing you could do to achieve that is to utilize emotional appeal to the reader. Try to integrate personal articles like “you”, “we”, and “us” more often; try to get your visitors as involved as possible. Avoid being too passive as it would prevent you from establishing a connection or a relationship with your target reader.
Keep your readers or customers engaged with your site. Make them think and interact by asking questions, giving riddles or trivia. All these create an air of friendliness for potential customers, and once you’ve made them comfortable reading, they are more likely to respond positively to you. As much as possible make them do all their transactions within your site, give out all the details about what you are offering so that can know everything they need to know. Trying to get online visitors ask questions and product or service information offline will be too cumbersome for them so be as accessible as possible.
Knowing the right information will certainly give you the right results. Knowing what people want and what they are searching for will be one of the keys to make it big in this business. One of the things that can help you acquire this information is through case studies, surveys and polls that can be found all over the internet. Most of these studies provide general demographic information about internet users. If you’re lucky enough (since it is discouraged), you might even stumble with information regarding the searching habits of different demographics.
Once you have decided to use particular information from the internet, make sure that it is from a reliable author or source. Incorrect and inaccurate data proliferates all over the internet and it happens that you may be misled by others to use them, so, see to it that the articles or studies you are about to use are made and conducted by certified educational institutions or known private companies so you will not have any problems about their authenticity.
Another effective source of information from the internet are pages which rank high among search engines especially those that are related to yours. Analyze and learn the effective things they have done to increase their PageRank and apply them to your work. You could also check out the pages of your top competitors, you might learn a lot from them but be careful not to copy their stuff as it is since they will be constantly checking out their competition. Copyright guidelines are finally catching up with those who replicate content, ending blacklisted by major search engines.
SEO forums are also helpful in guiding you about the latest trends in the Search Engine Optimization business. Experts usually crowd in these forums to discuss the tricks and trends of the business. Moreover, new updates and trends about Search Engine Algorithms and Technology can be found on these forums so it is highly advisable that you check out those forums. However, the forums might be a little too complicated for beginners as terms often become too technical to understand even by seasoned users.
About the words
Now let us go down to business! It is time to know what are the keywords and keyphrases you will use for your copy! The key words and phrases would be the ones that you will use and try to integrate throughout the whole copy. It would be the bait you place in the hook in order to attract and hopefully catch your potential customers.
First of all, you and your client should brainstorm together (face to face if possible) about the keywords and keyphrases you want to use for the copy. It is important that you brainstorm together so that you will be able to stay true to the brand and have an effective choice for use in the search engine optimization efforts. You could make use of different keyword tools found in the web such as Keyword Discovery, GoodKeywords, WordTracker, Overture, etc. (issues regarding their usability and effectiveness will be discussed separately). These tools can be downloaded or used directly over the internet should you choose to utilize it.
In choosing keyphrases or keywords remember to start with and use popular but “not-so-competitive” terms since it would be very difficult to compete with more established websites if you have just been starting. The above-mentioned tools will help you determine which key words or phrases you could use.
One word keywords are very difficult if not impossible to compete with as it would have a more general scope compared with keyphrases. For example, if you are trying to write content for a company selling educational toys, choosing a keyword like “toys” would be a stupid idea since search engines would give around one hundred million hits for that particular keyword, while changing it into keyphrase like “toys for students” or “educational toys” would only have hits of around five million. This means that the chance that a web searcher would actually go to your website would be 100,000,000:1 under the keyword “toys” while choosing the keyphrase “educational toys” means a chance of 5,000,000:1, greatly increasing your chance of being visited. Besides, customers are more likely to refine their searches since using or typing just one word searches would mean being bombarded with a lot of unwanted information than they need, costing more time and effort.
Your keywords should specifically target (1) the product or service that you are offering and (2) what people actually type whenever they use the search engines in looking for products and services like yours. A good example would be when writing content for a company selling kilns for bricks, you should not optimize for the keyword “kiln for bricks” if most people actually type “oven for bricks” when they are looking for such equipment. It is useless to optimize for the term kiln when most people opt to type oven since a few if none will be looking for the term kiln.
You should also identify and discover various words and terms which are closely related to your keyword or keyphrases. Some key-terms and keyphrases are so intimately intertwined with others that one group associates it with a particular field while another choose to associate it with something else. One good example would be Cosmetic Surgery. Cosmetic Surgery is a medical procedure, so, it can be regarded as something related with medicine and surgery, while it is also correct to say that it is related with cosmetics and beauty. Since the fields of medicine, surgery, cosmetics and beauty are popular fields, optimizing for both the cosmetic and the surgical aspect of the keyphrase Cosmetic Surgery would bring more keyword hits for searches from individuals of both parts of the spectrum.
Another thing to consider is to integrate local terminologies or equivalents of your products or services when optimizing with key words or phrases. An “elevator” in the US would be a “lift” in the UK, a “truck” in the US would be a “lorry” in the UK, and the list goes on. When trying to sell products or services for a huge demographically different society, you should optimize for both of the groups as each would tend to search for the more familiar local term. Better yet, you could create different sites for different demographic groups, replacing particular key words and phrases; enabling you to cater to both.
Moreover, it would be wise to consider placing regional information or regional key words or phrases. Integrating regional information along with keywords and keyphrases enables users who prefer more specified searches to visit your website. You would also benefit from the limited competition because of the more specified search. Most people looking for products and services in the internet would certainly prefer to find what they need locally, so adding local regional information would definitely be of great help to you and your potential client. Another benefit is that you could add another keyword, which is the regional information to your existing key word or key phrase. For example, instead of having just “plumbing services” add “Atlanta” before ‘plumbing services’. This would give you an edge over competitors as it would profoundly decrease your competition.
About the content
Now that you have the key words and phrases you would need its time to plan about the general thrust of the content, on what the content should be like.
Generally, the main idea of writing content is for it to be able to provide useful information for visitors in your site. You are primarily writing for the readers, the human visitors of your site, and about the products and services that you have to offer. Secondary to that idea is to provide the search engines information so they could properly and accurately index your site according to its proper category, so anyone who wants to look for something in particular, through the use of search engines, would eventually find what he needs. In other words, your content should be both customer-oriented and search engine friendly.
In order to do that, you need to plan properly on how to do your copywriting. The whole text should be able to give them what they need and want to know about the products and services you have. Hence, it is highly advisable that you read a lot of information about the subject product or service before you write the actual copy. The goal is to become extremely knowledgeable about the product, so you can explore all the possibilities and play with its strengths and weaknesses and write everything that is needed.
One important thing to remember is to write content that is unique. Copying content is not only plagiarism and cheating but is also a serious offense that could cause painful penalties under existing Copyright laws. More and more Intellectual Property Rights watch dogs are reporting cases of content stealing and have gained some grounds over the years. Major search engines are now penalizing sites which illegally acquire content from other sources. Penalties include permanently putting sites under a blacklist, sort of a “permanent not to contact sites” for crawlers. Lawsuits and cases about web content writing are now increasing day by day, with more countries enacting laws on Intellectual Property Rights. The risks are just too great if you plagiarize and copy content. So make sure that you quote or place endnotes when you choose to use parts of other’s content.
And lastly, your content should be written in plain, simple, and natural language so as not to destroy the natural flow of words as you write. Highly technical words and terms should be reserved for highly technical discussions, and should be discouraged for everyday internet use.
About the mood
You might be wondering what a section about mood is doing in a seo copywriting article, well, it certainly has a LOT to do about content writing. The mood of the reader would certainly affect the way he views a certain product or service. If you did not properly take care of the emotional side of your customer with your writing, consider him gone. Individual moods are affected by a lot of factors; although primarily it is internal, external factors could also affect his mood significantly and luckily what that individual reads is one of them.
First of all, you should be ‘in the mood’ for writing. Good copies are mostly written by writers who are either inspired or enlightened with what they are about to write. Content writers should make sure that they are in this special mood because the consequence of the opposite would be a very bad copy. A reader is also likely to be ‘drawn’ by an emphatic copy written superbly which would eventually end up making the reader get what you are offering.
One thing you could do to achieve that is to utilize emotional appeal to the reader. Try to integrate personal articles like “you”, “we”, and “us” more often; try to get your visitors as involved as possible. Avoid being too passive as it would prevent you from establishing a connection or a relationship with your target reader.
Keep your readers or customers engaged with your site. Make them think and interact by asking questions, giving riddles or trivia. All these create an air of friendliness for potential customers, and once you’ve made them comfortable reading, they are more likely to respond positively to you. As much as possible make them do all their transactions within your site, give out all the details about what you are offering so that can know everything they need to know. Trying to get online visitors ask questions and product or service information offline will be too cumbersome for them so be as accessible as possible.
@Keyword Optimization To Improve Search Engine Ranking
It’s tough to figure out keyword placement in your search engine optimization plan. Here are some tips to help you in your keyword optimization to improve search engine ranking.
When you are working with your web site, you always need to keep search engine optimization in mind. You need to perform keyword optimization effectively in your content in order to improve search engine ranking and lure in more traffic to your site. Below are some strategies to help you make the most of your keywords in your site’s content.
Where Should I Place Keywords?
After you’ve chosen your keywords for your site or for pages of individual content, such as an article or a blog, then you need to know where to add those keywords to your content so they will be visible to search engines. There are three main places where you should include these keywords:
• Your title
• Your URL
• Your content
These are the locations where search engines will look for your keywords.
How Often Should Keywords Appear in My Content?
Remember that search engines periodically change their algorithms to prevent professionals from artificially boosting their sites by learning the secrets. Years ago, more was considered better. Search engine optimization at that time required the keyword to be used as much as 4 to 5% (20 to 25 times in a 500 word article). Today, with proper keyword optimization, search engine optimization improves when you use those targeted words less. However, there are a few strategies that you also want to pay attention to when it comes to placing your keywords in your content to improve search engine ranking.
• Use primary keyword most frequently – If you’re going to use multiple keywords in your search engine optimization, choose the one which will be the most searched for. You should also choose 2 or 3 other words that you’ll sprinkle throughout the rest of the content in small numbers.
• Keep density high at the top and bottom – Like most of your readers, search engines aren’t going to read your content word for word. Instead, they are going to pay attention to the top and bottom portions of the content. That’s why you really want those parts of your page to be packed with your primary keyword. Make sure these parts also contain highly relevant content, perhaps a preview or a summary of what you’ll be discussing in the rest of the article.
• Use keywords naturally – One of the biggest mistakes in search engine optimization is to force keywords into content at the expense of readable material. If your visitors can’t stand to read your content, then they aren’t going to stick around. You want to use the keywords naturally. Keep that in mind when you are selecting keywords and phrases for your site. Some are going to be more difficult to use than others.
Using the above strategies to guide your keyword optimization effort will definitely improve your search engine optimization results. Remember to follow the same ideas whether you are writing the main content for your site, adding new entries to your blog, or putting together a series of articles that you’ll submit for other search engine marketing efforts.
When you are working with your web site, you always need to keep search engine optimization in mind. You need to perform keyword optimization effectively in your content in order to improve search engine ranking and lure in more traffic to your site. Below are some strategies to help you make the most of your keywords in your site’s content.
Where Should I Place Keywords?
After you’ve chosen your keywords for your site or for pages of individual content, such as an article or a blog, then you need to know where to add those keywords to your content so they will be visible to search engines. There are three main places where you should include these keywords:
• Your title
• Your URL
• Your content
These are the locations where search engines will look for your keywords.
How Often Should Keywords Appear in My Content?
Remember that search engines periodically change their algorithms to prevent professionals from artificially boosting their sites by learning the secrets. Years ago, more was considered better. Search engine optimization at that time required the keyword to be used as much as 4 to 5% (20 to 25 times in a 500 word article). Today, with proper keyword optimization, search engine optimization improves when you use those targeted words less. However, there are a few strategies that you also want to pay attention to when it comes to placing your keywords in your content to improve search engine ranking.
• Use primary keyword most frequently – If you’re going to use multiple keywords in your search engine optimization, choose the one which will be the most searched for. You should also choose 2 or 3 other words that you’ll sprinkle throughout the rest of the content in small numbers.
• Keep density high at the top and bottom – Like most of your readers, search engines aren’t going to read your content word for word. Instead, they are going to pay attention to the top and bottom portions of the content. That’s why you really want those parts of your page to be packed with your primary keyword. Make sure these parts also contain highly relevant content, perhaps a preview or a summary of what you’ll be discussing in the rest of the article.
• Use keywords naturally – One of the biggest mistakes in search engine optimization is to force keywords into content at the expense of readable material. If your visitors can’t stand to read your content, then they aren’t going to stick around. You want to use the keywords naturally. Keep that in mind when you are selecting keywords and phrases for your site. Some are going to be more difficult to use than others.
Using the above strategies to guide your keyword optimization effort will definitely improve your search engine optimization results. Remember to follow the same ideas whether you are writing the main content for your site, adding new entries to your blog, or putting together a series of articles that you’ll submit for other search engine marketing efforts.
8/12/09
@Looking For The Key
SEO. However you slice it, search engine optimization is something that you're going to need to know at least a little bit about if you're going to put your business on the web. The problem is that, when it comes to SEO, there's plenty of conflicting information available. How do you know what to trust?
Well, rather than telling you who you can trust, let's take a look at the flipside: who shouldn't you trust when you're looking for information about search engine optimization?
• The SEO Guru. You know you've seen them. The SEO guru is involved in forums, has a website that promises everyone that they can get to the top of the listings – regardless of how much competition you have for your chosen keywords. For that matter, you can sometimes find SEO gurus offering their services on eBay. The guru will give you the sense that their way is the only way, and that without their services you're not going to get anywhere.
• The writer who promises that his or her book will tell you everything that you need to know about search engine optimization for your site. Because the ways that search engines work and because the big players change their methods from time to time, looking to a book – particularly one that was written years ago – is unlikely to give you the answers that you need.
• Of course, the number one person who you shouldn't trust with search engine optimization for your site is someone whose own site isn't exactly performing at its peak; think about it, if their site is on the fifth or sixth page of search engine results, how good can their tactics really be? I don't mean the site they use to sell seo services. I mean ask them if they own a site that sells products or services other than Internet marketing that do well in the search engines and makes a profit.
Looking for the key to search engine optimization can be a lot like looking for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow: there's a promise that it's there, but chances are good it's going to feel like you can spend all of your time searching and not much time getting results.
The reality, however, is that the key to SEO isn't nearly as elusive as a pot of gold. While there may not be one trick, one technique, that guarantees you the search engine optimization results that you're looking for, there is one thing that is key to making your way to the top.
That key is fresh, informative, useful content. Simply by providing those who visit your site with quality content – tips posted to your daily blog, web pages that are easy to navigate and clearly written to address a particular topic, appropriate photos and even forums where site visitors can connect – you'll find that the search engine spiders keep coming back for more.
The more that your site is crawled – and the more information that it offers – the more likely it is to make its way to the top of the listings. The more that people learn about your site, the more traffic that you will have and the more links into your site that you'll receive. Traffic, links and visitors – along with content that keeps them coming back – are the key to your sites success.
Well, rather than telling you who you can trust, let's take a look at the flipside: who shouldn't you trust when you're looking for information about search engine optimization?
• The SEO Guru. You know you've seen them. The SEO guru is involved in forums, has a website that promises everyone that they can get to the top of the listings – regardless of how much competition you have for your chosen keywords. For that matter, you can sometimes find SEO gurus offering their services on eBay. The guru will give you the sense that their way is the only way, and that without their services you're not going to get anywhere.
• The writer who promises that his or her book will tell you everything that you need to know about search engine optimization for your site. Because the ways that search engines work and because the big players change their methods from time to time, looking to a book – particularly one that was written years ago – is unlikely to give you the answers that you need.
• Of course, the number one person who you shouldn't trust with search engine optimization for your site is someone whose own site isn't exactly performing at its peak; think about it, if their site is on the fifth or sixth page of search engine results, how good can their tactics really be? I don't mean the site they use to sell seo services. I mean ask them if they own a site that sells products or services other than Internet marketing that do well in the search engines and makes a profit.
Looking for the key to search engine optimization can be a lot like looking for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow: there's a promise that it's there, but chances are good it's going to feel like you can spend all of your time searching and not much time getting results.
The reality, however, is that the key to SEO isn't nearly as elusive as a pot of gold. While there may not be one trick, one technique, that guarantees you the search engine optimization results that you're looking for, there is one thing that is key to making your way to the top.
That key is fresh, informative, useful content. Simply by providing those who visit your site with quality content – tips posted to your daily blog, web pages that are easy to navigate and clearly written to address a particular topic, appropriate photos and even forums where site visitors can connect – you'll find that the search engine spiders keep coming back for more.
The more that your site is crawled – and the more information that it offers – the more likely it is to make its way to the top of the listings. The more that people learn about your site, the more traffic that you will have and the more links into your site that you'll receive. Traffic, links and visitors – along with content that keeps them coming back – are the key to your sites success.
@ Do You Really Need It?
Search Engine optimization…SEO for short is the art of making both the reader and the search engines happy with your webpage. Now how do I do that? Well simply put you want to have a set of keywords or phrases that appear on a certain page a number of times.
No sweat right, well yes it can be. Those words have to appear in such a way that they are conversational and balance against the amount of code that is on your page. Keeping the code to the needed amount and not extraneous is no short task. But having your keywords balance it and appear to be natural in the text can be a challenge.
One easy way to do this is to keep each page focused on one or two keywords. Remember that search engines rank pages, not sites. Its always better to have one page rank number 1 than to have 25 pages rank 250th in the search engines…..
Stay online for long and you’re sure to get conflicting messages:
“Learn everything you can about search engine optimization,” the experts will say, “because without your website will die.”
“Don’t worry about search engine optimization,” others will tell you. “It’s just a myth to get your money because the search engines will crawl your site anyway and you want to write your copy for your customers, not the search engines.”
The problem with both of these messages is that they are both correct. Yes, I said that’s a problem. Both statements are true.
Search engine optimization is the science of studying the search engines and how they rank web pages so that you can build a website that gets crawled quicker and ranked better for your important keywords. The issue with putting too much stock in it is when you think there is an automatic formula or panacea for all your lack of traffic or sales. Search engine optimization wasn’t designed to cure all of your problems, but it can cure some of them.
The first thing you need to know for excellent search engine optimization is research. You MUST conduct the proper keyword research. That’s a starting point. Then, you need to narrow down your niche. Do this before you build your website. In future posts on this blog we will show how and why this is important and give you all the details in performing the proper search engine optimization without wasting your time on useless activities. Stay tuned in. More to come.
No sweat right, well yes it can be. Those words have to appear in such a way that they are conversational and balance against the amount of code that is on your page. Keeping the code to the needed amount and not extraneous is no short task. But having your keywords balance it and appear to be natural in the text can be a challenge.
One easy way to do this is to keep each page focused on one or two keywords. Remember that search engines rank pages, not sites. Its always better to have one page rank number 1 than to have 25 pages rank 250th in the search engines…..
Stay online for long and you’re sure to get conflicting messages:
“Learn everything you can about search engine optimization,” the experts will say, “because without your website will die.”
“Don’t worry about search engine optimization,” others will tell you. “It’s just a myth to get your money because the search engines will crawl your site anyway and you want to write your copy for your customers, not the search engines.”
The problem with both of these messages is that they are both correct. Yes, I said that’s a problem. Both statements are true.
Search engine optimization is the science of studying the search engines and how they rank web pages so that you can build a website that gets crawled quicker and ranked better for your important keywords. The issue with putting too much stock in it is when you think there is an automatic formula or panacea for all your lack of traffic or sales. Search engine optimization wasn’t designed to cure all of your problems, but it can cure some of them.
The first thing you need to know for excellent search engine optimization is research. You MUST conduct the proper keyword research. That’s a starting point. Then, you need to narrow down your niche. Do this before you build your website. In future posts on this blog we will show how and why this is important and give you all the details in performing the proper search engine optimization without wasting your time on useless activities. Stay tuned in. More to come.
@How To Use It
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a means of designing a website, and its individual pages, so that you meet the requirements of a mathematical equation called an algorithm that is design to apply statistical analysis to determine how it relates to the search terms used by the search engine customers.
That is a long sentence, so let us look at the various elements that it contains. First designing a website. There is more to designing a website than making it pretty, and unfortunately there are a lot of website designers who do not appear to understand that. Before you can even start on design a site, you have to consider what the purpose of the website is. Usually to provide information to visitors on the search term that they use to reach you.
Web Pages Should Load Quickly
When you click to visit a website what do you want to happen? Do you want to see lovely flash graphics that take several minutes (or seem to) to load up, or do you want to be taken immediately to the home page. We both know the answer yet they still insist on the fancy stuff. That is ego, not practical web design.
Once you actually manage to get onto the home page, do you want some good information and easy navigation to well explained web pages, or do you want loads of graphics, pictures and nothing but line after line of adverts with some links to other pages on the site that you have to search for? We also both know the answer to that, but how often do you see pages full of adverts and graphics and little else? These pages are designed by self-professed SEO experts!
I recently had one of my customers ask to me run my eye over her home page that she had just had revamped by a professional developer but seemed not have been listed in Google. Because I look after my customers I agreed to do so free of charge, and do you know what I found? A web page that the spiders would have left the second they visited because the first text they would find would be line upon line of navigation away from the home page. When I checked the target pages, guess what? Same thing. The spiders would have been running round in circles, seeing nothing. Also no worth while titles and no headings except one in a H2 tag – no H1 tags at all.
Nobody can Guarantee a Google Position
All that from a ‘professional web developer’!! What do you need to be a professional these days? Don’t get me wrong, there are some good ones, though please take a piece of advice from me. Don’t hire anybody that has to pay for advertising. If they can’t get their own website into the top 10 for their main keyword, then how can they be qualified to do it for you? Forget the promises and guarantees. I can get anybody’s website into the top 10: even to number 1! All I need do is find a unique keyword or phrase that nobody is using, such as “Top website developers in Blaenavon South Wales”. I have checked that and nobody is using it! The only problem is that neither will any Google customers use it. Nobody can guarantee a Google listing position.
Incidentally, search engine customers are those that use them to find information that they are seeking. They are not advertisers on Google or people that use any of the Google services other that the search engine itself.
Keyword Density is a Thing of the Past
All SEO experts can get you in the top 10, but not for any keywords worth having. You are better doing it yourself. All you need worry about are having your keyword as part of your title (not all of it) and in TITLE tags, and use your page keyword in H1 tags as the main heading. Use it again as part of an H2 sub-heading. Use your keyword once in the first 100 characters and again in the last paragraph. Once more for every 500 words and that will do. Forget 1% -3% keyword density. Use lots of related text, but be careful of synonyms because few word mean exactly the same as others. Make sure that you make it clear in what context you are using a particular word.
Write naturally about your topic and you will be fine. Make sure that the spiders see your page title first, then the heading next. That will tell them what the most important text on your page is, and hence the topic of the page. The sub-headings will reinforce that, but only if they are in H2 – H3 tags. Forget anything more than H3.
The spiders should come across links leading from your page until it has read all your text. The lead t to where you want it do next. Attach a lead to it and guide it through your website, page by page, and avoid leading it from page to page haphazardly before it has seen the content on each page. Any website designed like the one I described at the beginning, with nothing but links at the start of every page, will be lucky to be listed at all unless it has hundreds of thousands of links coming into it.
Page Rank Might Lose its Influence
However, Google appear to be reconsidering how it views links, and perhaps web page content will be viewed as it should be – as more important than incoming links that can be contrived artificially. Follow my advice and do your own SEO. It is as easy as I have described. If you fail to get listed within two weeks you are doing something wrong, and then you might need help, but make sure you get help from somebody who wants to help you and not simply boost his or her ego.
There is more to search engine optimization than flashy pages. Spiders see in black and white, and are impatient creatures, so don’t lead them a merry dance. Be obvious, tell them what your page is about and let them read your content before sending them on to the next page.
SEO is about being honest with your visitors and giving them information that is as relevant to your subject as you possibly can, but also using common sense. Look at your home page, and consider what you want to be the most important parts of it. Then think where you would want your visitors eyes to go on your page to be given the best information. You can use HTML to make sure that the search engines crawl your page exactly that way.
Do Not Confuse Your Spiders
You can lead spiders from paragraph to paragraph. Table to table, link to link. Keep in mind that if a spider follows a link it will start crawling the page you sent it to and only come back if you allow it to: i.e. provide another link back to your home page. Theoretically you could send it back and forth the between two pages in an unbreakable loop!
That is the ‘website design’ part, leaving algorithms, statistical analysis and search terms still to cover. These will have to be the subject of another article!
That is a long sentence, so let us look at the various elements that it contains. First designing a website. There is more to designing a website than making it pretty, and unfortunately there are a lot of website designers who do not appear to understand that. Before you can even start on design a site, you have to consider what the purpose of the website is. Usually to provide information to visitors on the search term that they use to reach you.
Web Pages Should Load Quickly
When you click to visit a website what do you want to happen? Do you want to see lovely flash graphics that take several minutes (or seem to) to load up, or do you want to be taken immediately to the home page. We both know the answer yet they still insist on the fancy stuff. That is ego, not practical web design.
Once you actually manage to get onto the home page, do you want some good information and easy navigation to well explained web pages, or do you want loads of graphics, pictures and nothing but line after line of adverts with some links to other pages on the site that you have to search for? We also both know the answer to that, but how often do you see pages full of adverts and graphics and little else? These pages are designed by self-professed SEO experts!
I recently had one of my customers ask to me run my eye over her home page that she had just had revamped by a professional developer but seemed not have been listed in Google. Because I look after my customers I agreed to do so free of charge, and do you know what I found? A web page that the spiders would have left the second they visited because the first text they would find would be line upon line of navigation away from the home page. When I checked the target pages, guess what? Same thing. The spiders would have been running round in circles, seeing nothing. Also no worth while titles and no headings except one in a H2 tag – no H1 tags at all.
Nobody can Guarantee a Google Position
All that from a ‘professional web developer’!! What do you need to be a professional these days? Don’t get me wrong, there are some good ones, though please take a piece of advice from me. Don’t hire anybody that has to pay for advertising. If they can’t get their own website into the top 10 for their main keyword, then how can they be qualified to do it for you? Forget the promises and guarantees. I can get anybody’s website into the top 10: even to number 1! All I need do is find a unique keyword or phrase that nobody is using, such as “Top website developers in Blaenavon South Wales”. I have checked that and nobody is using it! The only problem is that neither will any Google customers use it. Nobody can guarantee a Google listing position.
Incidentally, search engine customers are those that use them to find information that they are seeking. They are not advertisers on Google or people that use any of the Google services other that the search engine itself.
Keyword Density is a Thing of the Past
All SEO experts can get you in the top 10, but not for any keywords worth having. You are better doing it yourself. All you need worry about are having your keyword as part of your title (not all of it) and in TITLE tags, and use your page keyword in H1 tags as the main heading. Use it again as part of an H2 sub-heading. Use your keyword once in the first 100 characters and again in the last paragraph. Once more for every 500 words and that will do. Forget 1% -3% keyword density. Use lots of related text, but be careful of synonyms because few word mean exactly the same as others. Make sure that you make it clear in what context you are using a particular word.
Write naturally about your topic and you will be fine. Make sure that the spiders see your page title first, then the heading next. That will tell them what the most important text on your page is, and hence the topic of the page. The sub-headings will reinforce that, but only if they are in H2 – H3 tags. Forget anything more than H3.
The spiders should come across links leading from your page until it has read all your text. The lead t to where you want it do next. Attach a lead to it and guide it through your website, page by page, and avoid leading it from page to page haphazardly before it has seen the content on each page. Any website designed like the one I described at the beginning, with nothing but links at the start of every page, will be lucky to be listed at all unless it has hundreds of thousands of links coming into it.
Page Rank Might Lose its Influence
However, Google appear to be reconsidering how it views links, and perhaps web page content will be viewed as it should be – as more important than incoming links that can be contrived artificially. Follow my advice and do your own SEO. It is as easy as I have described. If you fail to get listed within two weeks you are doing something wrong, and then you might need help, but make sure you get help from somebody who wants to help you and not simply boost his or her ego.
There is more to search engine optimization than flashy pages. Spiders see in black and white, and are impatient creatures, so don’t lead them a merry dance. Be obvious, tell them what your page is about and let them read your content before sending them on to the next page.
SEO is about being honest with your visitors and giving them information that is as relevant to your subject as you possibly can, but also using common sense. Look at your home page, and consider what you want to be the most important parts of it. Then think where you would want your visitors eyes to go on your page to be given the best information. You can use HTML to make sure that the search engines crawl your page exactly that way.
Do Not Confuse Your Spiders
You can lead spiders from paragraph to paragraph. Table to table, link to link. Keep in mind that if a spider follows a link it will start crawling the page you sent it to and only come back if you allow it to: i.e. provide another link back to your home page. Theoretically you could send it back and forth the between two pages in an unbreakable loop!
That is the ‘website design’ part, leaving algorithms, statistical analysis and search terms still to cover. These will have to be the subject of another article!
@You need to promote your website
The competition amongst the websites in the online world is increasing. Currently millions of websites exist on the World Wide Web and as a result it is simply not possible for any website to succeed on the web successfully without proper promotional efforts. You need to promote your website not only through traditional methods but also through the non-traditional methods of online marketing as well. Search Engine Optimization may help you in attracting more visitors towards your website. It is important for the basic survival of any website. As getting more web traffic is important for your basic survival on the web, search engine optimization is very important.
If you want to search engine optimize your website first of all you need to submit your website to the search engines. Once you submit your website to the search engines and web directories, the chances of getting noticed by the search engines increase. The second most important thing you need to do is to rearrange the content of your website. The content needs to have lots of keywords embedded appropriately in the content so that the website appears on the first result page when a related research is carried out. Another way of making your website search engine favorite is to place the links of your website on the right places on the web. By doing so the chances of getting more visitors are better. In this way you can be sure about getting more business.
The Internet marketers and the owners of the websites are very much concerned about Search Engine optimization. They also use other non-traditional ways of promoting their websites so as to make them search engine favorites. A search engine favorite website appears on the top of the result page and as a result the chances of getting more visitors also increase. Keeping this in mind all the Internet markets pay all due attention towards search engine optimization. Success in the online world is very much dependent on the regular flow of visitors on your website. If this is not the case, it becomes difficult for any website to stay in business. You may need to use email marketing, article marketing or social media to supplement your search engine optimization efforts to get maximum traffic by search engine optimization.
If you want to search engine optimize your website first of all you need to submit your website to the search engines. Once you submit your website to the search engines and web directories, the chances of getting noticed by the search engines increase. The second most important thing you need to do is to rearrange the content of your website. The content needs to have lots of keywords embedded appropriately in the content so that the website appears on the first result page when a related research is carried out. Another way of making your website search engine favorite is to place the links of your website on the right places on the web. By doing so the chances of getting more visitors are better. In this way you can be sure about getting more business.
The Internet marketers and the owners of the websites are very much concerned about Search Engine optimization. They also use other non-traditional ways of promoting their websites so as to make them search engine favorites. A search engine favorite website appears on the top of the result page and as a result the chances of getting more visitors also increase. Keeping this in mind all the Internet markets pay all due attention towards search engine optimization. Success in the online world is very much dependent on the regular flow of visitors on your website. If this is not the case, it becomes difficult for any website to stay in business. You may need to use email marketing, article marketing or social media to supplement your search engine optimization efforts to get maximum traffic by search engine optimization.
@One of the main services
One of the main services offered by Noon-an-Night Marketing is search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the process of increasing not only the amount, but also quality, of traffic that your web site receives from organic search engine listings (Noon-an-Night also offers services to help you improve and manage your paid search engine listings). Our SEO philosophy focuses on onpage and offpage factors which affect your search engine rankings. These factors include:
Onpage
-Content: Content is by far the most important onpage factor for improving your search engine rankings. Having unique content on each page that is focused on one specific product, service or topic and properly optimized will have a huge impact on the amount and quality of traffic that your receive from search engines. Quality content also plays a big role in determining the behavior of your web site’s visitors. If you write compelling content that users find to be interesting, they will trust your web site and be much more likely to return in the future.
-In addition to content, other important onpage SEO factors include your internal linking structure, the web sites you are linking out to and the way each of your web pages is structured.
Offpage
-Offpage SEO refers to the process of obtaining quality, targeted links. Unlike most onpage SEO work, offpage SEO is an ongoing process. In order to improve or maintain your rankings, you must obtain quality incoming links on a regular basis. Not only do you need incoming links, but you need incoming links with targeted anchor text that includes keywords from your web pages.
Noon-an-Night search engine optimization practices follow a strict set of guidelines. Noon-an-Night does not use any search engine optimization techniques that directly attempt to exploit or unethically manipulate search engines (these practices are known as “Blackhat SEO” within the industry). We believe that by following ethical guidelines for optimizing web sites, we can achieve the best long-term results for each of our clients.
Onpage
-Content: Content is by far the most important onpage factor for improving your search engine rankings. Having unique content on each page that is focused on one specific product, service or topic and properly optimized will have a huge impact on the amount and quality of traffic that your receive from search engines. Quality content also plays a big role in determining the behavior of your web site’s visitors. If you write compelling content that users find to be interesting, they will trust your web site and be much more likely to return in the future.
-In addition to content, other important onpage SEO factors include your internal linking structure, the web sites you are linking out to and the way each of your web pages is structured.
Offpage
-Offpage SEO refers to the process of obtaining quality, targeted links. Unlike most onpage SEO work, offpage SEO is an ongoing process. In order to improve or maintain your rankings, you must obtain quality incoming links on a regular basis. Not only do you need incoming links, but you need incoming links with targeted anchor text that includes keywords from your web pages.
Noon-an-Night search engine optimization practices follow a strict set of guidelines. Noon-an-Night does not use any search engine optimization techniques that directly attempt to exploit or unethically manipulate search engines (these practices are known as “Blackhat SEO” within the industry). We believe that by following ethical guidelines for optimizing web sites, we can achieve the best long-term results for each of our clients.
@Something you are going to need if you want to be successful
Search engine optimization is something you are going to need if you want to be successful with an online business. It is one of the best forms of website promotion available. There are so many businesses online, that you have to have a superior ranking with a search engine in order to get customers in your virtual door. To do that, your search engine optimization has to be perfect. Without it, the other guy will be getting all the business.
You can have the best looking, most informative web page on the Internet, but if no one knows about it, you won’t get any customers and your business will suffer. One key strategy to bringing in traffic to your website is search engine optimization. Basically, users type a keyword or phrase into a search engine and potentially thousands of web pages may pop up. But you don’t want your prospective customers to have to look four, five or even ten pages deep into the search results to find your page.
To know how to best go about optimizing your page for a search engine, you first need to know how search engine optimization works. It helps to know for what keywords a typical user will be searching. Some website owners help improve their ranking in search engines by changing the page’s coding or structure, so the actual work to make the page more optimized all happens behind the scenes. The user visiting won’t actually notice changes on the page. Other website owners choose to optimize their page with unique content. This helps the placement of their web page when someone is searching with a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. The unique content is easily indexed.
It is also wise to use directory submission, that is, submit your web page with different directories such as Yahoo. This can also bring traffic into your website. To do this, just search for the site’s directory submission page, enter your URL, website name, keywords or phrases, and a brief description and submit it.
Once you get the customers into your site, if it is well done and informative, they will want to add URL to their bookmarks so they can visit again. Just remember that website optimization is a key part of your Internet marketing and business success.
You can have the best looking, most informative web page on the Internet, but if no one knows about it, you won’t get any customers and your business will suffer. One key strategy to bringing in traffic to your website is search engine optimization. Basically, users type a keyword or phrase into a search engine and potentially thousands of web pages may pop up. But you don’t want your prospective customers to have to look four, five or even ten pages deep into the search results to find your page.
To know how to best go about optimizing your page for a search engine, you first need to know how search engine optimization works. It helps to know for what keywords a typical user will be searching. Some website owners help improve their ranking in search engines by changing the page’s coding or structure, so the actual work to make the page more optimized all happens behind the scenes. The user visiting won’t actually notice changes on the page. Other website owners choose to optimize their page with unique content. This helps the placement of their web page when someone is searching with a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. The unique content is easily indexed.
It is also wise to use directory submission, that is, submit your web page with different directories such as Yahoo. This can also bring traffic into your website. To do this, just search for the site’s directory submission page, enter your URL, website name, keywords or phrases, and a brief description and submit it.
Once you get the customers into your site, if it is well done and informative, they will want to add URL to their bookmarks so they can visit again. Just remember that website optimization is a key part of your Internet marketing and business success.
@Why You Need To Use Search Engine Optimization
A lot of website owners are content to buy PPC ads, run affiliate programs, and buy banners ads as their sole forms of advertising. They completely shun search engine optimization because they think that it’s too hard to keep up with and that the returns aren’t predictable.
There’s a major flaw in that style of thinking. They’re missing out on large portion of potential customers by not being highly visible in the organic search engine listings.
I have a friend who uses Google everyday, he buys a lot of items, but he doesn’t respond well to advertising, especially PPC advertising. He’s never clicked on a pay per click ad in his life. He’s highly skeptical of marketing, and will ignore it.
While he’s probably the exception rather than the rule, there are a certain percentage of people who will ignore the ads no matter how good your ad copy is. You may be thinking that these people make bad customers anyway, but if we use my friend as an example, you’d be wrong. He’s always buying himself new gadgets and “toys.”
However, reaching him as a customer is a lot trickier because traditional advertising methods simply aren’t going to work.
This is where implementing search engine optimization as a strategy comes in. My friend can easily be reached by showing up on the first page of Google for whatever he typed in as long as you’re found in the regular listings, but if you’re not easy to find in the regular listings, you’re not going to get his business.
So what’s a business to do? While the finer details of search engine optimization could easily exceed 1000 pages, there are two basic things you need to rank well in the search engines – content and links.
You need enough content (articles, videos, pics, etc) on your website to thoroughly cover your topic. For example, a site about real estate that only has ten pages is woefully inadequate, but those ten pages would likely able to cover how to care for a golden retriever fairly well.
And once you have the content on your website taken care of, you need to get links to your website. In general, the more links you have, the better rankings you’ll get.
I’m not saying that SEO should be your only strategy for driving traffic to your website, but you should certainly give it a chance, and when you do, you’ll find that it will help you get new customers you weren’t able to get previously.
There’s a major flaw in that style of thinking. They’re missing out on large portion of potential customers by not being highly visible in the organic search engine listings.
I have a friend who uses Google everyday, he buys a lot of items, but he doesn’t respond well to advertising, especially PPC advertising. He’s never clicked on a pay per click ad in his life. He’s highly skeptical of marketing, and will ignore it.
While he’s probably the exception rather than the rule, there are a certain percentage of people who will ignore the ads no matter how good your ad copy is. You may be thinking that these people make bad customers anyway, but if we use my friend as an example, you’d be wrong. He’s always buying himself new gadgets and “toys.”
However, reaching him as a customer is a lot trickier because traditional advertising methods simply aren’t going to work.
This is where implementing search engine optimization as a strategy comes in. My friend can easily be reached by showing up on the first page of Google for whatever he typed in as long as you’re found in the regular listings, but if you’re not easy to find in the regular listings, you’re not going to get his business.
So what’s a business to do? While the finer details of search engine optimization could easily exceed 1000 pages, there are two basic things you need to rank well in the search engines – content and links.
You need enough content (articles, videos, pics, etc) on your website to thoroughly cover your topic. For example, a site about real estate that only has ten pages is woefully inadequate, but those ten pages would likely able to cover how to care for a golden retriever fairly well.
And once you have the content on your website taken care of, you need to get links to your website. In general, the more links you have, the better rankings you’ll get.
I’m not saying that SEO should be your only strategy for driving traffic to your website, but you should certainly give it a chance, and when you do, you’ll find that it will help you get new customers you weren’t able to get previously.
8/11/09
@What Is Search Engine Optimization?
If you are the owner, operator or manager of an Internet based business enterprise, you likely understand the great importance of drawing customers to your business website. In this regard, you likely have heard of the term search engine optimization. With that said, while you may have heard of search engine optimization, you may not know precisely what is involved in search engine optimization. You may not precisely understand what is involved in search engine optimization.
In point of fact, search engine optimization is one of the most important concepts when it comes to the marketing and promotion of an Internet website or a business existing on the World Wide Web. If you have spent any time at all on the Internet, you understand the fact that different search engines are widely used by people who access the World Wide Web. By typing in a particular set of search terms into a search engine, a person is provided with a listing of website resources that are intended to be related to the terms that were being searched.
Understanding the basics of how a search engine works, you understand that in many instances a potential customer is drawn to your business website as a result of using a search engine service on the Internet and World Wide Web. Of course, people being people, the typical person tends to only pay attention to those websites that come in at the top spaces of a particular search engine search. Consequently, those websites that come in towards the top of a particular search are the same websites that are more frequently visited. (This is a particular important fact for an Internet based business.)
The benefits to having your business listed at the top of various search engine results generally translates into a major increase in traffic and revenue enjoyed by your business operation. Therefore, even if you find that you are spending some money to ensure a higher search engine ranking, the money you spend will be money well spent in the vast majority of cases. Truly, money spent on increasing your search engine ranking, money spent on SEO, oftentimes translates into bein a true investment in the financial future of your business enterprise. Indeed, such an investment may mean the different between your business showing a profit and your business not getting off of the ground. It may mean the difference between success and failure.
In point of fact, search engine optimization is one of the most important concepts when it comes to the marketing and promotion of an Internet website or a business existing on the World Wide Web. If you have spent any time at all on the Internet, you understand the fact that different search engines are widely used by people who access the World Wide Web. By typing in a particular set of search terms into a search engine, a person is provided with a listing of website resources that are intended to be related to the terms that were being searched.
Understanding the basics of how a search engine works, you understand that in many instances a potential customer is drawn to your business website as a result of using a search engine service on the Internet and World Wide Web. Of course, people being people, the typical person tends to only pay attention to those websites that come in at the top spaces of a particular search engine search. Consequently, those websites that come in towards the top of a particular search are the same websites that are more frequently visited. (This is a particular important fact for an Internet based business.)
The benefits to having your business listed at the top of various search engine results generally translates into a major increase in traffic and revenue enjoyed by your business operation. Therefore, even if you find that you are spending some money to ensure a higher search engine ranking, the money you spend will be money well spent in the vast majority of cases. Truly, money spent on increasing your search engine ranking, money spent on SEO, oftentimes translates into bein a true investment in the financial future of your business enterprise. Indeed, such an investment may mean the different between your business showing a profit and your business not getting off of the ground. It may mean the difference between success and failure.
@About Search Engine Optimization
Before talking about Search Engine Marketing firms, it is basic to define the meaning of SEO. Search Engine Optimization is presently a part of an online marketing approach, but it is the primary part.
Search engine position and keyword related promotion can be counted for 85% to 95% of general web traffic. Increasing the density of keywords on site is one of the fastest and simplest ways to add chance of webpage's visibility in the search engine results Search engine optimization, or search engine marketing for that issue, is a tool of a business policy. The technique to great SEO outcomes is to make out exactly what goals you want to achieve and with what priorities. People employs search engine optimization techniques to get large nos. of hits for their sites.
Search engine optimization is an issue of learning as much as you can about search technologies, and tempering the acquired knowledge adding a bit of business knowledge of the search engines themselves. Business Intuition helps you to recognize not just what technologies are in position now-a-days but more importantly where to they are heading. The web page, which may be in place 3 months down the line when your web pages lastly pages finally are completely manifested.
Better to explain this reasoning, we will imply to a "keyword" as a vocabulary that your usual web surfer will input in the search box when finding for particular information about a product or service. Advanced technologies are always there to discover, understand and reckon from both sides of the search business. Search Engine - Is a database of web sites which is ranked according to the computerized norm that the programmers consider called an algorithm.
Different search engines verify ranking on their own different factors of importance or application. In the recent past the search engine- Google has been the famous search engine providing the search results for Yahoo and to a lesser extent MSN and AOL. This has changed currently after Yahoo purchased different search engine companies and the inception of its own search engine. The MSN has decided to enter this SEO marketing with their personal search engine algorithm. The searchers write keyword questions into search boxes. Keyword inquiries are provided by the consequences from the databases of the search engines in accordance with the ranking algorithm from whatever search engine they are using. Algorithm is the principle that decides how a web page will position the search results pages of a search engine.
A web site is created solely for search engine ranking function which consists almost entirely of a long list of unrelated links. These types of pages are fined by all kinds search engines. Another necessary thing for search engines is the effect of sand box for filed web sites. Sandbox is allegedly used by one large search engine that is Google as a trial time for new sites. Getting a high PR is kept back for the duration this period.
Search engine position and keyword related promotion can be counted for 85% to 95% of general web traffic. Increasing the density of keywords on site is one of the fastest and simplest ways to add chance of webpage's visibility in the search engine results Search engine optimization, or search engine marketing for that issue, is a tool of a business policy. The technique to great SEO outcomes is to make out exactly what goals you want to achieve and with what priorities. People employs search engine optimization techniques to get large nos. of hits for their sites.
Search engine optimization is an issue of learning as much as you can about search technologies, and tempering the acquired knowledge adding a bit of business knowledge of the search engines themselves. Business Intuition helps you to recognize not just what technologies are in position now-a-days but more importantly where to they are heading. The web page, which may be in place 3 months down the line when your web pages lastly pages finally are completely manifested.
Better to explain this reasoning, we will imply to a "keyword" as a vocabulary that your usual web surfer will input in the search box when finding for particular information about a product or service. Advanced technologies are always there to discover, understand and reckon from both sides of the search business. Search Engine - Is a database of web sites which is ranked according to the computerized norm that the programmers consider called an algorithm.
Different search engines verify ranking on their own different factors of importance or application. In the recent past the search engine- Google has been the famous search engine providing the search results for Yahoo and to a lesser extent MSN and AOL. This has changed currently after Yahoo purchased different search engine companies and the inception of its own search engine. The MSN has decided to enter this SEO marketing with their personal search engine algorithm. The searchers write keyword questions into search boxes. Keyword inquiries are provided by the consequences from the databases of the search engines in accordance with the ranking algorithm from whatever search engine they are using. Algorithm is the principle that decides how a web page will position the search results pages of a search engine.
A web site is created solely for search engine ranking function which consists almost entirely of a long list of unrelated links. These types of pages are fined by all kinds search engines. Another necessary thing for search engines is the effect of sand box for filed web sites. Sandbox is allegedly used by one large search engine that is Google as a trial time for new sites. Getting a high PR is kept back for the duration this period.
@Why Search Engine Optimization Is Not Enough
OK. So you've created a nice website with lots of interesting products and information. Now all you need is visitors.
No problem.
This is what online marketers call "getting traffic", and it definitely is a problem. In fact, probably much more of a problem than you realized when you got into this online selling stuff. You probably figured it was just a matter of creating a nice site and waiting for people to discover it. Get listed in a few directories; "submit" your site to a bunch of search engines, and you'll be on your way.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
**Why it doesn't work that way**
The reason is pretty simple. Most new internet entrepreneurs have no idea how important the big search engines are -- especially Google, MSN, and Yahoo. And they have no idea how these big search engines work. If they did, they would probably tear their beautiful websites apart and start over.
And guess what? That is exactly what most online entrepreneurs end up doing. If they are persistent enough, they eventually learn about the search engines, and they rebuild their sites the way they should have been built in the first place.
**What they think they have learned**
The reason they rebuild their sites is because they learn a little bit about something called "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO". The mysterious art of SEO starts from the premise that search engines analyze websites in terms of content and subject matter. Their automatic "spiders" look over your pages and use hints within those pages to determine what they are about. If they see lots of words about "golden retrievers" on a particular page, then they assume that page is about "golden retrievers". These are known as "keywords" -- the words that indicate what your content is about.
SEO takes this fairly obvious fact and says, "Since the search engines are going to draw conclusions about the subject matter of your pages based on keywords, then you should make sure they see the correct ones." In fact, there are all kinds of little SEO techniques that try to exploit the way spiders draw conclusions about your pages.
**Why this is not enough**
Unfortunately, no matter how much SEO you do, it is still not enough to ensure you a high ranking in searches for your most important keywords. Especially if you are chasing popular keywords like most of us are. For instance, it really doesn't matter how much "optimization" you do for a keyword like "Real Estate", since you will be competing for search engine results with literally millions of other pages which are also optimized for that term. Why should they choose your humble little page?
The fact is, they don't choose yours. And the reason is pretty simple.Your page is just not important enough to rank a high position for a term like "Real Estate". You have to do something to give it some importance.
**Making your pages "important"**
The most effective way to make your pages "important" in the eyes of the search engines, is to get other sites to link to yours. When the search engines see a link pointing from an outside site to a page on your site, they assume this means your page is important enough to be considered a resource worth looking at. The more links you have pointing at your page, the more important your page is considered and the higher it will rank when people search for the type of content your page is about.
It is also important to understand that not all links are considered equally valuable by the search engines. The most valuable links come from other important sites that share your area of interest. For instance, if yours is a Real Estate site, then the most valuable links are from other real estate sites that have already achieved some importance in the eyes of the search engines.
To put this all in "link strategy" terms:
The best way to enhance the importance of your web pages in the eyes of the search engines, is by getting as many links as possible from relevant sites that are considered authoritative in your area of interest.
By: Rick Hendershot
No problem.
This is what online marketers call "getting traffic", and it definitely is a problem. In fact, probably much more of a problem than you realized when you got into this online selling stuff. You probably figured it was just a matter of creating a nice site and waiting for people to discover it. Get listed in a few directories; "submit" your site to a bunch of search engines, and you'll be on your way.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
**Why it doesn't work that way**
The reason is pretty simple. Most new internet entrepreneurs have no idea how important the big search engines are -- especially Google, MSN, and Yahoo. And they have no idea how these big search engines work. If they did, they would probably tear their beautiful websites apart and start over.
And guess what? That is exactly what most online entrepreneurs end up doing. If they are persistent enough, they eventually learn about the search engines, and they rebuild their sites the way they should have been built in the first place.
**What they think they have learned**
The reason they rebuild their sites is because they learn a little bit about something called "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO". The mysterious art of SEO starts from the premise that search engines analyze websites in terms of content and subject matter. Their automatic "spiders" look over your pages and use hints within those pages to determine what they are about. If they see lots of words about "golden retrievers" on a particular page, then they assume that page is about "golden retrievers". These are known as "keywords" -- the words that indicate what your content is about.
SEO takes this fairly obvious fact and says, "Since the search engines are going to draw conclusions about the subject matter of your pages based on keywords, then you should make sure they see the correct ones." In fact, there are all kinds of little SEO techniques that try to exploit the way spiders draw conclusions about your pages.
**Why this is not enough**
Unfortunately, no matter how much SEO you do, it is still not enough to ensure you a high ranking in searches for your most important keywords. Especially if you are chasing popular keywords like most of us are. For instance, it really doesn't matter how much "optimization" you do for a keyword like "Real Estate", since you will be competing for search engine results with literally millions of other pages which are also optimized for that term. Why should they choose your humble little page?
The fact is, they don't choose yours. And the reason is pretty simple.Your page is just not important enough to rank a high position for a term like "Real Estate". You have to do something to give it some importance.
**Making your pages "important"**
The most effective way to make your pages "important" in the eyes of the search engines, is to get other sites to link to yours. When the search engines see a link pointing from an outside site to a page on your site, they assume this means your page is important enough to be considered a resource worth looking at. The more links you have pointing at your page, the more important your page is considered and the higher it will rank when people search for the type of content your page is about.
It is also important to understand that not all links are considered equally valuable by the search engines. The most valuable links come from other important sites that share your area of interest. For instance, if yours is a Real Estate site, then the most valuable links are from other real estate sites that have already achieved some importance in the eyes of the search engines.
To put this all in "link strategy" terms:
The best way to enhance the importance of your web pages in the eyes of the search engines, is by getting as many links as possible from relevant sites that are considered authoritative in your area of interest.
By: Rick Hendershot
@Search Engine Optimization And Search Marketing For Start Ups
Startup Companies often have big dreams and a small budget. Using pay per click (PPC) advertising like Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN adCenter alone to draw traffic may not be financially feasible. A successful startup should opt for a more balanced, frugal approach to getting traffic to their landing pages; one which incorporates generic search result traffic. Using a blend of limited PPC advertising and content optimization can yield the best return on an SEO investment.
Strategy One for Startup Companies: Split Tests & Pay Per Click
Whenever you conduct a pay per click campaign you should always run split tests to see which ads are most effective. An A - B split test is the most simple, and practical method. Simply create two ads for the same keywords and run both ads in conjunction. Which ever ad has a higher score, try and determine why. Discontinue the less successful ad and create another ad and accentuate the features of the better selling ad. Iterate this split testing process to come up with the best ads. Often, simply looking at the top ads is a great way to get started--learn what you can from the best!
Another short note when conducting a pay per click management campaign; often it is wise to only bid on ads on the Google or Yahoo! search results, and not their content networks. Google's content network ads are not as visible and will hurt your ad's quality score due to the lower click thru rate the ads will have on the content networks.
Strategy Two for Startup Companies: Keyword Optimization
Purchasing a software program like AdWords Analyzer or getting a membership at WordTracker.com is essential to effective search engine optimization. The goal with using these programs is to find relevant search phrases that are are searched heavily but without much competition. Once these search phrases are detected, you can start optimizing your page's content for these keywords.
Links have always been the staple of search engine page rank algorithms. Google currently uses link text to determine page relevancy; that is, the words the anchor tags are placed around that link to your site help Google determine what keywords are relevant in relation to your site's content. If I linked to your site with the link text "Polish Sausage" Google will think have a clue that your site is relevant to sausage sales. The question then becomes, "How do I get the right links pointing to my site with the right keywords in the linked text?" That might be difficult if you didn't do it yourself; thus you must do it yourself.
You'll want to find sites with a high page rank to post your links on; message boards will not do. Decent Search Engine Marketing will require you to sign up for sites like Associated Content, Squidoo, and eZine Articles. Create your own content and have link text that is keyword specific to the various pages you are linking to. Watch, you rankings will improve and you'll make money posting content to some of these sites as well. For some complete search engine marketing advice, take a look at the following search engine marketing blog
In conclusion, incorporating a blend of pay per click and organic search engine optimization will dramatically improve your page rank and your landing page scores. Google, and the rest of the engines are getting smarter; keyword optimization is just the tip of the iceberg! If your money low, time high, this balanced attack strategy can be an incredibly effective course of action with a great return on your investment.
Strategy One for Startup Companies: Split Tests & Pay Per Click
Whenever you conduct a pay per click campaign you should always run split tests to see which ads are most effective. An A - B split test is the most simple, and practical method. Simply create two ads for the same keywords and run both ads in conjunction. Which ever ad has a higher score, try and determine why. Discontinue the less successful ad and create another ad and accentuate the features of the better selling ad. Iterate this split testing process to come up with the best ads. Often, simply looking at the top ads is a great way to get started--learn what you can from the best!
Another short note when conducting a pay per click management campaign; often it is wise to only bid on ads on the Google or Yahoo! search results, and not their content networks. Google's content network ads are not as visible and will hurt your ad's quality score due to the lower click thru rate the ads will have on the content networks.
Strategy Two for Startup Companies: Keyword Optimization
Purchasing a software program like AdWords Analyzer or getting a membership at WordTracker.com is essential to effective search engine optimization. The goal with using these programs is to find relevant search phrases that are are searched heavily but without much competition. Once these search phrases are detected, you can start optimizing your page's content for these keywords.
Links have always been the staple of search engine page rank algorithms. Google currently uses link text to determine page relevancy; that is, the words the anchor tags are placed around that link to your site help Google determine what keywords are relevant in relation to your site's content. If I linked to your site with the link text "Polish Sausage" Google will think have a clue that your site is relevant to sausage sales. The question then becomes, "How do I get the right links pointing to my site with the right keywords in the linked text?" That might be difficult if you didn't do it yourself; thus you must do it yourself.
You'll want to find sites with a high page rank to post your links on; message boards will not do. Decent Search Engine Marketing will require you to sign up for sites like Associated Content, Squidoo, and eZine Articles. Create your own content and have link text that is keyword specific to the various pages you are linking to. Watch, you rankings will improve and you'll make money posting content to some of these sites as well. For some complete search engine marketing advice, take a look at the following search engine marketing blog
In conclusion, incorporating a blend of pay per click and organic search engine optimization will dramatically improve your page rank and your landing page scores. Google, and the rest of the engines are getting smarter; keyword optimization is just the tip of the iceberg! If your money low, time high, this balanced attack strategy can be an incredibly effective course of action with a great return on your investment.
8/9/09
@How Search Engines Work And Why Search Engine Optimization Is Important
What is a search engine? A search engine is a different type of site on the web which is created to find information that is stored in individual websites for people who type in a keyword or group of keywords seeking information on that topic. Some examples of search engines are Google, MSN, Yahoo, to mention a few. Search engine optimization is a very important process to get your website to the top ten in the search engines.
Search engines usually work a little different from each other but they have a few basic tasks they perform. They search the internet based on the important keywords. They store and index the words they find on the internet and where they find them, such as websites. They allow people to search for the important information they have stored in their index.
Search engines use to have only maybe a few hundred thousand pages indexed as there weren’t many computer users. Today a large search engine may have hundreds of millions of web pages indexed as they now have many computer users and a lot of inquiries. Again I need to mention how important it is to get your website optimized to rank well in the search engines.
What are spiders? A search engine indexes files or documents by using special software robots called spiders. These spiders search the internet and so called “crawl” websites searching for information and building lists of important words found on websites.
Spiders usually start at busy sites where there is a lot of activity and crawl through every link on pages of those websites. This crawling quickly spreads out through links. That’s why it is good to have reciprocal links with websites with a high page rank.
What is indexing? After the spiders have finished finding information on Web pages, the search engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. Most search engines store more than just the word and URL. An engine might store the number of times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the meta tags or in the title of the page. Most search engines have a different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same word on different search engines will produce different lists, with the pages presented in different orders. With so many websites on the internet, knowing website optimization is very important.
What happens when you type a keyword into a search engine? The search engine software or program is the final part. When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the search engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first. If you have your website optimized well, you will have an advantage over your competition. All rights reserved You have the author's permission to use this article but you must include the author's bio and it's link.
Search engines usually work a little different from each other but they have a few basic tasks they perform. They search the internet based on the important keywords. They store and index the words they find on the internet and where they find them, such as websites. They allow people to search for the important information they have stored in their index.
Search engines use to have only maybe a few hundred thousand pages indexed as there weren’t many computer users. Today a large search engine may have hundreds of millions of web pages indexed as they now have many computer users and a lot of inquiries. Again I need to mention how important it is to get your website optimized to rank well in the search engines.
What are spiders? A search engine indexes files or documents by using special software robots called spiders. These spiders search the internet and so called “crawl” websites searching for information and building lists of important words found on websites.
Spiders usually start at busy sites where there is a lot of activity and crawl through every link on pages of those websites. This crawling quickly spreads out through links. That’s why it is good to have reciprocal links with websites with a high page rank.
What is indexing? After the spiders have finished finding information on Web pages, the search engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. Most search engines store more than just the word and URL. An engine might store the number of times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the meta tags or in the title of the page. Most search engines have a different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same word on different search engines will produce different lists, with the pages presented in different orders. With so many websites on the internet, knowing website optimization is very important.
What happens when you type a keyword into a search engine? The search engine software or program is the final part. When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the search engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first. If you have your website optimized well, you will have an advantage over your competition. All rights reserved You have the author's permission to use this article but you must include the author's bio and it's link.
@Tips For Optimizing Your Site For Search Engines
Tips For Search Engine Optimization: Five Important Keys To Starting Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization relies upon five key ingredients: keywords, metatags, consistency, expert advice and creativity. Incorporating these elements in your article writing can and will increase your profits and traffic to your web site.
1. Arguably the most important element in search engine optimization is keywords. Keywords in integral in article marketing as they are what allow search engines to pull your article from the millions of others available on the internet according to their relevancy. It cannot be over emphasized how important good keyword research is to search engine marketing.
2. Metatags allow search engines to accurately list your article in their data bases. While it may seem that metatags are more important than keywords, they are not. There are many websites that do not use metatags. Many people think that metatags are now much less important than they once were due to being ignored by some search engines.
3. Consistency is also important for search engine optimization. It is essential that you develop a consistent pattern for optimizing your search engine potential. It is recommended that you follow up on your efforts, this allow you to assess what did and did not work as well as why or why not. Search engines monitor how often you update your site which helps determine how often they visit your site for new content.
4. Never under estimate the value of expert advice. There are professionals as wel as businesses that are quite adept at Search Engine Optimization. If you are just getting started, consulting someone with more experience in this are can be a worth while expert. Under their guidance you to can become an expert in this field.
5. Creativity can be your best friend when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Thinking outside the proverbial box can put you in the winner’s circle when it comes to increased profits and traffic from Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Optimization relies upon five key ingredients: keywords, metatags, consistency, expert advice and creativity. Incorporating these elements in your article writing can and will increase your profits and traffic to your web site.
1. Arguably the most important element in search engine optimization is keywords. Keywords in integral in article marketing as they are what allow search engines to pull your article from the millions of others available on the internet according to their relevancy. It cannot be over emphasized how important good keyword research is to search engine marketing.
2. Metatags allow search engines to accurately list your article in their data bases. While it may seem that metatags are more important than keywords, they are not. There are many websites that do not use metatags. Many people think that metatags are now much less important than they once were due to being ignored by some search engines.
3. Consistency is also important for search engine optimization. It is essential that you develop a consistent pattern for optimizing your search engine potential. It is recommended that you follow up on your efforts, this allow you to assess what did and did not work as well as why or why not. Search engines monitor how often you update your site which helps determine how often they visit your site for new content.
4. Never under estimate the value of expert advice. There are professionals as wel as businesses that are quite adept at Search Engine Optimization. If you are just getting started, consulting someone with more experience in this are can be a worth while expert. Under their guidance you to can become an expert in this field.
5. Creativity can be your best friend when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Thinking outside the proverbial box can put you in the winner’s circle when it comes to increased profits and traffic from Search Engine Optimization.
@How To Raise Your Rankings In The Search Engines With Some Basic SEO "Search Engine Optimization" Tips
I don't know how many times I've been asked. "Many People ask How do I get traffic to my website?"
To best discuss this topic I should break this down into categories
1. Title Tags
The title Should contain keywords and keyword phrases that is important to your site. Our recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 60.
Also when counting your characters remember that spaces are considered as well.
Titles should appeal to the reader otherwise even a top position will lose a lot of clicks.
For example, "shoes, nike shoes,best shoes, review shoes," is unlikely to induce a click. What may induce a click would be like: Shoes - Find out the latest styles on name brand shoes.
2. Description
The maximum number of characters I recommend for this Tag is 150. Any longer than this and it will only be cut off and may count against your site being listed high in the search engines. Try to repeat your keywords that you used in your title in a proper sentence and in 3rd party. Avoid I, Me, Myself etc.
3. Keywords
keywords My recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 250. Any more than that may be considered spamming. Keep your keywords focused upon what your site is about.
Don't think that if I use an assortment of different keywords that your site will be a seller. Targeted marketing is associated with your keywords.
4. Keyword Nesting
keyword nesting is nesting your top 5 most important keywords in the html page that the public will see. I would recommend using the keywords that you've used in your title, description.
5. Head Tags
Head Tags should be a repeat of your title tag. Most webmasters put their head tag right after the body tag.
6. Anchor Links
Anchor Links is one of the most important html tags that your site needs to gain search engine page rank especially in Google and MSN.
To best discuss this topic I should break this down into categories
1. Title Tags
The title Should contain keywords and keyword phrases that is important to your site. Our recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 60.
Also when counting your characters remember that spaces are considered as well.
Titles should appeal to the reader otherwise even a top position will lose a lot of clicks.
For example, "shoes, nike shoes,best shoes, review shoes," is unlikely to induce a click. What may induce a click would be like: Shoes - Find out the latest styles on name brand shoes.
2. Description
The maximum number of characters I recommend for this Tag is 150. Any longer than this and it will only be cut off and may count against your site being listed high in the search engines. Try to repeat your keywords that you used in your title in a proper sentence and in 3rd party. Avoid I, Me, Myself etc.
3. Keywords
keywords My recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 250. Any more than that may be considered spamming. Keep your keywords focused upon what your site is about.
Don't think that if I use an assortment of different keywords that your site will be a seller. Targeted marketing is associated with your keywords.
4. Keyword Nesting
keyword nesting is nesting your top 5 most important keywords in the html page that the public will see. I would recommend using the keywords that you've used in your title, description.
5. Head Tags
Head Tags should be a repeat of your title tag. Most webmasters put their head tag right after the body tag.
6. Anchor Links
Anchor Links is one of the most important html tags that your site needs to gain search engine page rank especially in Google and MSN.
@A Comprehensive Guide For Beginners To Content Writing For Search Engine Optimization
Copywriting is an art of writing information for various forms of media. It has evolved through time from its early forms in books, magazines and newspapers, Copywriting has again transcended from its usual form and practices into the new internet era; Copywriting as utilized by the Search Engine Optimization business is also known as Internet Content Writing, Web Content Writing, amongst other terms. The various terms of Copywriting shall be used interchangeably throughout this text.
This article will try to tell you about the basics of copywriting and its advanced application on the SEO aspect. This article aims to provide the beginners in the Search Engine Optimization industry, an in-depth but friendly guide to seo content writing, as well as providing the more advanced copywriters with a guide to remind them of the several tricks they might have forgotten about the craft.
This guide shall be divided into the three parts of the copywriting process: the before, during, and after. This is the first part of the guide dealing with the things a copywriter must do BEFORE writing the copy. Succeeding parts shall be posted separately because of the size.
Before Writing
Before doing any writing you should first know the purpose why you’re writing that content. Your purpose should be clear and definite so no equivocation of ideas will exist that might confound your readers. Is the writing for sports? Is it for entertainment? Is it educational? These things should be clear on your mind before you write your copy, so a natural flow will exist as you write.
Another thing to consider is to know whom are you writing for and who are the people you wish to convey the message to? Knowledge of your audience will give you many benefits: people with different cultures only respond to a specific approach you use, technical terms would be very trivial when talking to beginners while spelled out and explained details would be very time consuming for experts. The internet is used by a vast network of people and your target may only comprise a very small minority. It is important that you address your target effectively if you want more conversions (making site visitors into customers) on your web site.
This article will try to tell you about the basics of copywriting and its advanced application on the SEO aspect. This article aims to provide the beginners in the Search Engine Optimization industry, an in-depth but friendly guide to seo content writing, as well as providing the more advanced copywriters with a guide to remind them of the several tricks they might have forgotten about the craft.
This guide shall be divided into the three parts of the copywriting process: the before, during, and after. This is the first part of the guide dealing with the things a copywriter must do BEFORE writing the copy. Succeeding parts shall be posted separately because of the size.
Before Writing
Before doing any writing you should first know the purpose why you’re writing that content. Your purpose should be clear and definite so no equivocation of ideas will exist that might confound your readers. Is the writing for sports? Is it for entertainment? Is it educational? These things should be clear on your mind before you write your copy, so a natural flow will exist as you write.
Another thing to consider is to know whom are you writing for and who are the people you wish to convey the message to? Knowledge of your audience will give you many benefits: people with different cultures only respond to a specific approach you use, technical terms would be very trivial when talking to beginners while spelled out and explained details would be very time consuming for experts. The internet is used by a vast network of people and your target may only comprise a very small minority. It is important that you address your target effectively if you want more conversions (making site visitors into customers) on your web site.
@Website Search Engine Optimization For Search Engine Friendliness
Website Search engine optimization is the buzz word of the internet. You can’t survive online without it! Understanding its concepts is crucial to your business growth!
The success of your website online largely depends on the level of visibility it enjoys. This will only happen with a robust and effective website search engine optimization program. There are many ways to accomplish this end objective.
Keywords
Keywords are those magic words which attract your site to search engines. These also guarantee good page rankings. Since these are an important component of website search engine optimization you need to ensure each page of your site has a good array of strategic keywords evenly spread out. Many experts conduct intensive keyword research programs which help to analyze which keywords are the most popular and can fetch you greater visibility online.
Copywriting
The content on your website not only needs to be interesting and related to the site theme, it also needs to be search engine friendly. Website search engine optimization relies on effective and search engine friendly copywriting to attract better page ranking online. Your website copy needs to exude professionalism while also ensuring that keywords are generously sprinkled in the articles.
Meta tags and title
The title of your web pages is what will attract search engines to your site. That’s why it’s important that not only is the title interesting and catchy, but it also has relevant keywords in it. That way the search engine robots that crawl sites get to access your site instantly. Website search engine optimization is all about being accessible to search engines. Even your site Meta tags need to have these keywords well placed.
Knowing your competition
Many website search engine optimization service providers will do an in-depth competitive analysis. This is because in order to stay ahead in the competition you need to know where you stand. That’s why it helps to find out which keywords are currently being used by your immediate competition. It will also enable you to learn from their mistakes and fine tune your site optimization efforts better.
Manual submission
Many providers will also manually submit your site to search engines online. Through this they are able to effectively and actively propagate your website to the web. Website search engine optimization methods involve fine tuning of content, building more links as well as involving tools like PPC etc. to drive more traffic.
Link density
The page rank and popularity of your site will depend on the number of links as well as the kind and quality of links on your site. In fact most of the popular search engines of today distinguish successful and not so successful sites by the density of links on their sites. Therefore as part of your website search engine optimization program you need to ensure active procurement of associated links to your site. By improving the link density you get to improve the relative placement of your site in search engine results.
High quality links
It isn’t just sufficient to have a large volume of links to your site. It’s also equally important in website search engine optimization to have good quality links from reliable partners. Therefore, it is essential to test the strength and effectiveness of each link before incorporating it into your site.
The success of your website online largely depends on the level of visibility it enjoys. This will only happen with a robust and effective website search engine optimization program. There are many ways to accomplish this end objective.
Keywords
Keywords are those magic words which attract your site to search engines. These also guarantee good page rankings. Since these are an important component of website search engine optimization you need to ensure each page of your site has a good array of strategic keywords evenly spread out. Many experts conduct intensive keyword research programs which help to analyze which keywords are the most popular and can fetch you greater visibility online.
Copywriting
The content on your website not only needs to be interesting and related to the site theme, it also needs to be search engine friendly. Website search engine optimization relies on effective and search engine friendly copywriting to attract better page ranking online. Your website copy needs to exude professionalism while also ensuring that keywords are generously sprinkled in the articles.
Meta tags and title
The title of your web pages is what will attract search engines to your site. That’s why it’s important that not only is the title interesting and catchy, but it also has relevant keywords in it. That way the search engine robots that crawl sites get to access your site instantly. Website search engine optimization is all about being accessible to search engines. Even your site Meta tags need to have these keywords well placed.
Knowing your competition
Many website search engine optimization service providers will do an in-depth competitive analysis. This is because in order to stay ahead in the competition you need to know where you stand. That’s why it helps to find out which keywords are currently being used by your immediate competition. It will also enable you to learn from their mistakes and fine tune your site optimization efforts better.
Manual submission
Many providers will also manually submit your site to search engines online. Through this they are able to effectively and actively propagate your website to the web. Website search engine optimization methods involve fine tuning of content, building more links as well as involving tools like PPC etc. to drive more traffic.
Link density
The page rank and popularity of your site will depend on the number of links as well as the kind and quality of links on your site. In fact most of the popular search engines of today distinguish successful and not so successful sites by the density of links on their sites. Therefore as part of your website search engine optimization program you need to ensure active procurement of associated links to your site. By improving the link density you get to improve the relative placement of your site in search engine results.
High quality links
It isn’t just sufficient to have a large volume of links to your site. It’s also equally important in website search engine optimization to have good quality links from reliable partners. Therefore, it is essential to test the strength and effectiveness of each link before incorporating it into your site.
8/7/09
@Top 10 search engine optimization tips for online news start-ups
This week, OJR is helping present the KDMC News Entrepreneur Boot Camp at USC. We've brought 15 aspiring news entrepreneurs to the USC Marshall School of Business, where they are learning the basic of eliciting financial and community support while creating a small news business. They are building upon their existing journalism skills, learning how those skills have (or have not) prepared them to move from being reporters to publishers.
You can follow our Tweets about the camp using the hashtag #uscnewsbiz on Twitter.
I'll write more about the camp, which ends tomorrow, with a wrap-up on Friday. But today, I wanted to dive into one important topic that we covered in a dinner conversation on Sunday evening.
Our invited speaker was Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Land, and a long-time expert in search engine optimization [SEO]. Danny's a news entrepreneur himself, having grown his 1996 Webmaster's Guide to Search Engines into two online news publications. (He also maintains a blog at http://daggle.com/, which I recommend for his sharp observations of the online news business.)
I asked Sullivan to come speak to our campers because of the importance of SEO to any boot-strapped online start-up. With few resources to draw readers to a new website, SEO provides start-ups a low-cost opportunity to get their site's links in front of an interested audience. The only cost is the time to learn these tips, and the effort required to implement them.
Effective SEO not only causes your website's pages to rise in the search engine's results pages, it can help you make money, as SEO can help search engines tailor better targeted and more lucrative ads on your pages, should you participate in their advertising syndicates, such as Google AdSense.
Most of these tips are Sullivan's, rephrased and with summaries of observations from me and from other camp participants included.
1) Use Google AdWords' keyword tool to find the most popular keywords related to your website and your beat
Before you begin tuning your specific key words and phrases, you need to discover what key words and phrases Internet readers are using in search engines to find content like yours'. Google's various keyword tools can help you do that. The AdWords tool will show you the approximate number of searches conducted on Google for words and phrases that you enter, or for phrases associated with a URL of your choosing.
Google's Search-based Keyword Tool quantifies the popularity of various key phrases, with both search volumes as well as suggested advertising bid prices to "buy" those keywords through Google's text-ad program. That last bit of information can show you not only which key phrases will drive the most traffic to the site, but which will drive the most lucrative traffic to you, as well.
Use the tools to identify the best overall phrases for your site, the ones that you will use in the site's title and on its home page and navigation. Then, use the tool to build experience that will help you select the best key words and phrases to spotlight when writing and producing individual articles and blog posts on your site.
Google's home page provides guidance, as well, as Google now suggests various keywords and phrases - and reports their popularity - based on the partial search terms you type in its entry box.
2) Use key words and phrases in your HTML title tag
Once you've identified your keywords and phrases, use them in the most importance place where search engines will consider them. The search engines give the content of the title tag the greatest weight of any single element on the page, so your most appropriate key phrases better be there, Sullivan said.
If you are using a content management system [CMS], know which input field will populate the title tag (usually the headline). Use the resources above to determine which words ought to make it into that headline. Imagine yourself as a reader, and ask what terms you would use on Google if you were searching for this story. Those terms had better be in your head, and page title.
Also, be sure to use powerful, popular keywords in the title, description and tags of your videos you post on YouTube and elsewhere online.
3) Write an engaging meta description tag for each page
Sullivan, and others, find little SEO use for the plethora of descriptive meta tags that can be included in the head of a webpage. But the description tag still provides good value, as Google uses it to create the short blurb that it displays under a page's title on its search engine results pages [SERPs]. A sharp description can help lure a visitor to your site over others, including ones that rank ahead of you on the page.
4) Switch from AP style to "SEO style" on references in body copy
Keyword repetition and density on the page still play a role in where you end up in the SERPs (though not nearly as much as in the pre-Google era.) You can help yourself, therefore, by moving away from rigid AP style rules on second references and place names to more SEO-friendly use of full names on some (but not all) subsequent references within a story.
5) Use keywords in your URLs whenever possible
The search engines value the use of keywords in URLs, as well. If you've got one in your site's domain, great. But keywords in the directory path or file name of the URL provide a boost, as well. Rather than use numbers or nonsense text in article URLs, opt for a CMS that uses real words, ideally keywords for which readers will be searching.
Sullivan also recommends that you configure your CMS to use hyphens instead of underscores to separate keywords in your URLs.
6) Never publish the same article under two or more URLs on your site
Duplicate content penalties have killed news websites' positions in the SERPs in the past. You shouldn't publish the same article at multiple URLs on your site. It's fine to reference one piece with multiple tags and from multiple index pages, but they should all point to the same, single URL when referencing that story or blog post.
Much of Google's decision on where to rank a page in the SERPs is based upon the number and quality of links to that individual page. Concentrate the in-bound links to one story on a single URL. Posting that content on multiple webpage addresses simply dilutes the power of all those links across those multiple URLs.
7) Create standing pages as linkbait for popular ongoing stories and issues
This extends the point above. In an ideal world, you would concentrate all the inbound links to a story you are following to a single URL, driving it to the top of the SERPs for all related searches. But that's tough in a traditional news publishing environment, where each day brings a new article, with a new URL. Staff-written summary wikis and well-crafted index pages can provide a standing URL that others can link when referencing your coverage of a particular person or issue, boosting the search engine popularity of your work.
8) Never retire or change page URLs without providing a 301 redirect
Search engines respond to a variety of responses from a Web server when a search engine requests a URL that no longer exists. A "404" or page not found response is the worst response your server can deliver. It should, instead provide a 301 redirect, which tells the search engine to which new URL it should transfer the old URL's SERPs position. Here's how to do a 301 redirect in several CMSs and scripting languages.
9) Use bit.ly or other URL shorteners that use 301 redirects and provide click stats when posting to Twitter
When you are using URL shorteners, you want to make sure that your site is getting the search engine "credit" for that link, and not the shortener itself. Sullivan suggested bit.ly as one of several services that use 301 redirects, and after trying it, I'm impressed with the click-through statistics it tracks for each URL I shortened through it.
10) Link to other great, original content and invite other publishers to link to yours
The last advice might be the most important. Great on-page SEO ultimately will do little to move your pages up in the SERPs if other websites are not linking to you. Use your social media and offline promotional skills to let other influential online news publishers know about your work, and invite them to link to it. Tweet your posts and write them with enough flair that others will want to retweet.
Of course, the best way to encourage others to link to you is to practice what you ask, and to link to them and their best coverage.
Finally...
For WordPress users, Sullivan recommended the All in One SEO Pack as an effective plug-in that can address several of these points on their WordPress sites.
Sullivan also advised not to worry about article length, after one camp participant asked. Article length, if it does affect SERPs performance, doesn't count nearly as much as these other factors.
In general, don't sweat other details when worrying about SEO until after you've addressed these basic principles in improving your website's search engine performance.
By Robert Niles
You can follow our Tweets about the camp using the hashtag #uscnewsbiz on Twitter.
I'll write more about the camp, which ends tomorrow, with a wrap-up on Friday. But today, I wanted to dive into one important topic that we covered in a dinner conversation on Sunday evening.
Our invited speaker was Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Land, and a long-time expert in search engine optimization [SEO]. Danny's a news entrepreneur himself, having grown his 1996 Webmaster's Guide to Search Engines into two online news publications. (He also maintains a blog at http://daggle.com/, which I recommend for his sharp observations of the online news business.)
I asked Sullivan to come speak to our campers because of the importance of SEO to any boot-strapped online start-up. With few resources to draw readers to a new website, SEO provides start-ups a low-cost opportunity to get their site's links in front of an interested audience. The only cost is the time to learn these tips, and the effort required to implement them.
Effective SEO not only causes your website's pages to rise in the search engine's results pages, it can help you make money, as SEO can help search engines tailor better targeted and more lucrative ads on your pages, should you participate in their advertising syndicates, such as Google AdSense.
Most of these tips are Sullivan's, rephrased and with summaries of observations from me and from other camp participants included.
1) Use Google AdWords' keyword tool to find the most popular keywords related to your website and your beat
Before you begin tuning your specific key words and phrases, you need to discover what key words and phrases Internet readers are using in search engines to find content like yours'. Google's various keyword tools can help you do that. The AdWords tool will show you the approximate number of searches conducted on Google for words and phrases that you enter, or for phrases associated with a URL of your choosing.
Google's Search-based Keyword Tool quantifies the popularity of various key phrases, with both search volumes as well as suggested advertising bid prices to "buy" those keywords through Google's text-ad program. That last bit of information can show you not only which key phrases will drive the most traffic to the site, but which will drive the most lucrative traffic to you, as well.
Use the tools to identify the best overall phrases for your site, the ones that you will use in the site's title and on its home page and navigation. Then, use the tool to build experience that will help you select the best key words and phrases to spotlight when writing and producing individual articles and blog posts on your site.
Google's home page provides guidance, as well, as Google now suggests various keywords and phrases - and reports their popularity - based on the partial search terms you type in its entry box.
2) Use key words and phrases in your HTML title tag
Once you've identified your keywords and phrases, use them in the most importance place where search engines will consider them. The search engines give the content of the title tag the greatest weight of any single element on the page, so your most appropriate key phrases better be there, Sullivan said.
If you are using a content management system [CMS], know which input field will populate the title tag (usually the headline). Use the resources above to determine which words ought to make it into that headline. Imagine yourself as a reader, and ask what terms you would use on Google if you were searching for this story. Those terms had better be in your head, and page title.
Also, be sure to use powerful, popular keywords in the title, description and tags of your videos you post on YouTube and elsewhere online.
3) Write an engaging meta description tag for each page
Sullivan, and others, find little SEO use for the plethora of descriptive meta tags that can be included in the head of a webpage. But the description tag still provides good value, as Google uses it to create the short blurb that it displays under a page's title on its search engine results pages [SERPs]. A sharp description can help lure a visitor to your site over others, including ones that rank ahead of you on the page.
4) Switch from AP style to "SEO style" on references in body copy
Keyword repetition and density on the page still play a role in where you end up in the SERPs (though not nearly as much as in the pre-Google era.) You can help yourself, therefore, by moving away from rigid AP style rules on second references and place names to more SEO-friendly use of full names on some (but not all) subsequent references within a story.
5) Use keywords in your URLs whenever possible
The search engines value the use of keywords in URLs, as well. If you've got one in your site's domain, great. But keywords in the directory path or file name of the URL provide a boost, as well. Rather than use numbers or nonsense text in article URLs, opt for a CMS that uses real words, ideally keywords for which readers will be searching.
Sullivan also recommends that you configure your CMS to use hyphens instead of underscores to separate keywords in your URLs.
6) Never publish the same article under two or more URLs on your site
Duplicate content penalties have killed news websites' positions in the SERPs in the past. You shouldn't publish the same article at multiple URLs on your site. It's fine to reference one piece with multiple tags and from multiple index pages, but they should all point to the same, single URL when referencing that story or blog post.
Much of Google's decision on where to rank a page in the SERPs is based upon the number and quality of links to that individual page. Concentrate the in-bound links to one story on a single URL. Posting that content on multiple webpage addresses simply dilutes the power of all those links across those multiple URLs.
7) Create standing pages as linkbait for popular ongoing stories and issues
This extends the point above. In an ideal world, you would concentrate all the inbound links to a story you are following to a single URL, driving it to the top of the SERPs for all related searches. But that's tough in a traditional news publishing environment, where each day brings a new article, with a new URL. Staff-written summary wikis and well-crafted index pages can provide a standing URL that others can link when referencing your coverage of a particular person or issue, boosting the search engine popularity of your work.
8) Never retire or change page URLs without providing a 301 redirect
Search engines respond to a variety of responses from a Web server when a search engine requests a URL that no longer exists. A "404" or page not found response is the worst response your server can deliver. It should, instead provide a 301 redirect, which tells the search engine to which new URL it should transfer the old URL's SERPs position. Here's how to do a 301 redirect in several CMSs and scripting languages.
9) Use bit.ly or other URL shorteners that use 301 redirects and provide click stats when posting to Twitter
When you are using URL shorteners, you want to make sure that your site is getting the search engine "credit" for that link, and not the shortener itself. Sullivan suggested bit.ly as one of several services that use 301 redirects, and after trying it, I'm impressed with the click-through statistics it tracks for each URL I shortened through it.
10) Link to other great, original content and invite other publishers to link to yours
The last advice might be the most important. Great on-page SEO ultimately will do little to move your pages up in the SERPs if other websites are not linking to you. Use your social media and offline promotional skills to let other influential online news publishers know about your work, and invite them to link to it. Tweet your posts and write them with enough flair that others will want to retweet.
Of course, the best way to encourage others to link to you is to practice what you ask, and to link to them and their best coverage.
Finally...
For WordPress users, Sullivan recommended the All in One SEO Pack as an effective plug-in that can address several of these points on their WordPress sites.
Sullivan also advised not to worry about article length, after one camp participant asked. Article length, if it does affect SERPs performance, doesn't count nearly as much as these other factors.
In general, don't sweat other details when worrying about SEO until after you've addressed these basic principles in improving your website's search engine performance.
By Robert Niles
@ What's The Difference?
SEO and SEM are two terms that are commonly bandied about by webmasters. Sometimes it seems as if the two terms are used almost interchangeably. But is there a difference, and if so, what is it?
In fact, there is a difference. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to anything you do to your page to make it more search engine friendly. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It forms a sort of umbrella term that can refer to anything you do to get your page ranked higher in search engines, from search engine optimization to requesting backlinks to submitting your URL to search engines.
It's important to know the difference between the two when you're shopping for SEO or SEM services. If the company doesn't specify what services it offers as part of its "SEM Package," then don't hesitate to ask. And don't hand over any money until you know! Some companies may mean nothing more than submitting your website's URL to a few search engines, and you can do that yourself.
Whenever possible, get a list of specific things they plan to do to help surfers find your website. Will they submit your URL to search engines? Get a list of the search engines they plan to submit it to. ("Yahoo!, Google, and 100's More!" doesn't count.) Will they keyword optimize your site? Be sure to ask if they include META and ALT tags.
Ultimately, whether a company uses "SEO" or "SEM" doesn't matter as much as what services they offer. Ideally, SEM would be more valuable than SEO, because it would include SEO as well as other marketing strategies. But this is not always the case. As we've noted before, it can be simply a code for "stick your URL is a few search engines and be done with it." Look for reputable websites, and ask for specific services they offer. Once you've done your homework, you will be able to make an informed decision between SEO and SEM and march forward proudly, knowing that you truly got the best value for your money.
In fact, there is a difference. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to anything you do to your page to make it more search engine friendly. SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It forms a sort of umbrella term that can refer to anything you do to get your page ranked higher in search engines, from search engine optimization to requesting backlinks to submitting your URL to search engines.
It's important to know the difference between the two when you're shopping for SEO or SEM services. If the company doesn't specify what services it offers as part of its "SEM Package," then don't hesitate to ask. And don't hand over any money until you know! Some companies may mean nothing more than submitting your website's URL to a few search engines, and you can do that yourself.
Whenever possible, get a list of specific things they plan to do to help surfers find your website. Will they submit your URL to search engines? Get a list of the search engines they plan to submit it to. ("Yahoo!, Google, and 100's More!" doesn't count.) Will they keyword optimize your site? Be sure to ask if they include META and ALT tags.
Ultimately, whether a company uses "SEO" or "SEM" doesn't matter as much as what services they offer. Ideally, SEM would be more valuable than SEO, because it would include SEO as well as other marketing strategies. But this is not always the case. As we've noted before, it can be simply a code for "stick your URL is a few search engines and be done with it." Look for reputable websites, and ask for specific services they offer. Once you've done your homework, you will be able to make an informed decision between SEO and SEM and march forward proudly, knowing that you truly got the best value for your money.
@ Any Difference?
For many casual internet users, the terms SEM and SEO rarely enter their minds when they are busy jumping from one website to another. However, it is these terms that determine much of what comes out on the results page whenever we type in a word in the search tab of any accessible search engine. These terms are also responsible for all those advertisements and pop-ups that link us to even more websites, whether they may be connected to our original search or not. So just what are SEM and SEO?
In the simplest way possible, SEM and SEO are tools which website creators, especially those who are promoting and selling a certain service or product, use in order to gain a lot of exposure and better ranking for their website. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, the simplicity ends there.
To make it a tad bit complex, SEM and SEO are not the same. As suggested by the names, SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, deals more with how a website is marketed to gain exposure in the different search engines available on the internet, while SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, deals with how the web creators develop and re-develop the content, quality and structure of their entire websites so that whenever an internet user types in a particular word in the search tab, their websites have a better chance of appearing on the first few search engine results pages (SERPS).
Now, to make it even more complex, although the functions of SEM and SEO seem different, they are more effective when used together. Since the main function of SEM is to gain more exposure for a website, the more common means for attraction are online advertisements, blogs, internet articles, partner and sponsored websites, and anything that can catch the eye of the internet user. SEM also makes use of PPC (pay-per-click) and paid inclusion to further push a website’s visibility. Lastly, it is also an important process in SEM to submit the name and URL of a website to different search engines and web directories if only to inform them of the website’s existence. All this is carried out to ensure the popularity of a website.
So how does SEO come together with SEM? Well, despite having all the advertisements provided by SEM, it is truly the SEO that allows the internet user to easily and conveniently find what he is looking for. Since the function of SEO is to gain a better ranking in the SERPS, the web creator has to constantly optimize his website in order to cater to the needs of the internet user and to make it easier for spiders or web crawlers to judge whether the website’s content is relevant to the word/s being searched. Optimization is not a simple and easy task. It involves having to restructure the website regularly (by editing the html code and meta tags, changing content, reorganizing the site map, developing an easier navigational structure, etc.) so as to adapt to the rapidly changing demands of the internet user. Still, when done properly, not only does SEO help a website become more useful and therefore, more often visited by the internet user, it also helps gain more exposure since it increases the website’s chances of gaining a better rank in the SERPS.
Both SEM and SEO success rely heavily on the words or context which Internet users type in whenever they search for something on the internet. Take PPC under SEM, for example. PPC is an ad that is triggered by a particular word or context used by an internet user. Once a particular word or context is searched, a corresponding PPC ad for a website comes out. SEO works in the same way. The web creator inputs a particular Meta tag (or keyword) in his html that he believes many internet users will use when searching for information, information which the web creator’s website may contain.
Although all of these processes involving SEM and SEO are tedious and time-consuming, it all boils down to knowing and serving the target audience. A web creator must be discerning enough to know what the internet users need and want, and at the same time he must have the real passion to inform and provide the internet users with the right service and product.
In the simplest way possible, SEM and SEO are tools which website creators, especially those who are promoting and selling a certain service or product, use in order to gain a lot of exposure and better ranking for their website. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, the simplicity ends there.
To make it a tad bit complex, SEM and SEO are not the same. As suggested by the names, SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, deals more with how a website is marketed to gain exposure in the different search engines available on the internet, while SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, deals with how the web creators develop and re-develop the content, quality and structure of their entire websites so that whenever an internet user types in a particular word in the search tab, their websites have a better chance of appearing on the first few search engine results pages (SERPS).
Now, to make it even more complex, although the functions of SEM and SEO seem different, they are more effective when used together. Since the main function of SEM is to gain more exposure for a website, the more common means for attraction are online advertisements, blogs, internet articles, partner and sponsored websites, and anything that can catch the eye of the internet user. SEM also makes use of PPC (pay-per-click) and paid inclusion to further push a website’s visibility. Lastly, it is also an important process in SEM to submit the name and URL of a website to different search engines and web directories if only to inform them of the website’s existence. All this is carried out to ensure the popularity of a website.
So how does SEO come together with SEM? Well, despite having all the advertisements provided by SEM, it is truly the SEO that allows the internet user to easily and conveniently find what he is looking for. Since the function of SEO is to gain a better ranking in the SERPS, the web creator has to constantly optimize his website in order to cater to the needs of the internet user and to make it easier for spiders or web crawlers to judge whether the website’s content is relevant to the word/s being searched. Optimization is not a simple and easy task. It involves having to restructure the website regularly (by editing the html code and meta tags, changing content, reorganizing the site map, developing an easier navigational structure, etc.) so as to adapt to the rapidly changing demands of the internet user. Still, when done properly, not only does SEO help a website become more useful and therefore, more often visited by the internet user, it also helps gain more exposure since it increases the website’s chances of gaining a better rank in the SERPS.
Both SEM and SEO success rely heavily on the words or context which Internet users type in whenever they search for something on the internet. Take PPC under SEM, for example. PPC is an ad that is triggered by a particular word or context used by an internet user. Once a particular word or context is searched, a corresponding PPC ad for a website comes out. SEO works in the same way. The web creator inputs a particular Meta tag (or keyword) in his html that he believes many internet users will use when searching for information, information which the web creator’s website may contain.
Although all of these processes involving SEM and SEO are tedious and time-consuming, it all boils down to knowing and serving the target audience. A web creator must be discerning enough to know what the internet users need and want, and at the same time he must have the real passion to inform and provide the internet users with the right service and product.
@Search Engine Friendly Domain Name
Having your own domain name is now become so important. It is not only representing professional and credibility of your company, but it is also make your url being indexed by search engine much easier.
There is another important role of domain name that being forgot by web masters.
Search engine friendly domain name is influencing in search engine placement. If you do want to get the top in search engine, then name your domain with this kind of domain name:
1) Use domain name that represents prior keyword of your site. This is very important step in optimizing your web site. At least, this step has 2 positive impacts on your site:
# Your domain name will be much easier to be being remembered by visitors, since your domain name represents prior keyword that they want to know.
# You will have good positioning on search engine because url has it's important roles for search engines. This kind of url is also called with url-keyword.
For details about url-keyword, you can read our free guidance in SEO-ing web site.
This kind of url will also influence PR of your site, since another web sites which want to link to you are forced to enter your prior keyword as url in texts-link on their web page.
2) Abbreviate some words with numeric:
Eample: 2 = two
4 = for
This will also makes your url in good positioning on few search engines that sorts url based on initial-numeric domain name.
3) Make your domain name as short as possible. Long domain name will only makes your url difficult to remember and easily being forget by visitors, so this should be avoided. In the opposite, using short url-keyword will make your url memorize-able.
4) Use Popular TLD only as much as you can. The reason why it is recommended is, because popular TLD not only will make it easy to remember, but it also represents credibility of your business.
5) If your url consists more than a single word, then use minus (-) sign as the separator. This will avoid misspelling, mistype and make ease in spelling.
There is another important role of domain name that being forgot by web masters.
Search engine friendly domain name is influencing in search engine placement. If you do want to get the top in search engine, then name your domain with this kind of domain name:
1) Use domain name that represents prior keyword of your site. This is very important step in optimizing your web site. At least, this step has 2 positive impacts on your site:
# Your domain name will be much easier to be being remembered by visitors, since your domain name represents prior keyword that they want to know.
# You will have good positioning on search engine because url has it's important roles for search engines. This kind of url is also called with url-keyword.
For details about url-keyword, you can read our free guidance in SEO-ing web site.
This kind of url will also influence PR of your site, since another web sites which want to link to you are forced to enter your prior keyword as url in texts-link on their web page.
2) Abbreviate some words with numeric:
Eample: 2 = two
4 = for
This will also makes your url in good positioning on few search engines that sorts url based on initial-numeric domain name.
3) Make your domain name as short as possible. Long domain name will only makes your url difficult to remember and easily being forget by visitors, so this should be avoided. In the opposite, using short url-keyword will make your url memorize-able.
4) Use Popular TLD only as much as you can. The reason why it is recommended is, because popular TLD not only will make it easy to remember, but it also represents credibility of your business.
5) If your url consists more than a single word, then use minus (-) sign as the separator. This will avoid misspelling, mistype and make ease in spelling.
@A Comprehensive Guide For Beginners To Content Writing For Search Engine Optimization (Continued)
About the resources
Knowing the right information will certainly give you the right results. Knowing what people want and what they are searching for will be one of the keys to make it big in this business. One of the things that can help you acquire this information is through case studies, surveys and polls that can be found all over the internet. Most of these studies provide general demographic information about internet users. If you’re lucky enough (since it is discouraged), you might even stumble with information regarding the searching habits of different demographics.
Once you have decided to use particular information from the internet, make sure that it is from a reliable author or source. Incorrect and inaccurate data proliferates all over the internet and it happens that you may be misled by others to use them, so, see to it that the articles or studies you are about to use are made and conducted by certified educational institutions or known private companies so you will not have any problems about their authenticity.
Another effective source of information from the internet are pages which rank high among search engines especially those that are related to yours. Analyze and learn the effective things they have done to increase their PageRank and apply them to your work. You could also check out the pages of your top competitors, you might learn a lot from them but be careful not to copy their stuff as it is since they will be constantly checking out their competition. Copyright guidelines are finally catching up with those who replicate content, ending blacklisted by major search engines.
SEO forums are also helpful in guiding you about the latest trends in the Search Engine Optimization business. Experts usually crowd in these forums to discuss the tricks and trends of the business. Moreover, new updates and trends about Search Engine Algorithms and Technology can be found on these forums so it is highly advisable that you check out those forums. However, the forums might be a little too complicated for beginners as terms often become too technical to understand even by seasoned users.
About the words
Now let us go down to business! It is time to know what are the keywords and keyphrases you will use for your copy! The key words and phrases would be the ones that you will use and try to integrate throughout the whole copy. It would be the bait you place in the hook in order to attract and hopefully catch your potential customers.
First of all, you and your client should brainstorm together (face to face if possible) about the keywords and keyphrases you want to use for the copy. It is important that you brainstorm together so that you will be able to stay true to the brand and have an effective choice for use in the search engine optimization efforts. You could make use of different keyword tools found in the web such as Keyword Discovery, GoodKeywords, WordTracker, Overture, etc. (issues regarding their usability and effectiveness will be discussed separately). These tools can be downloaded or used directly over the internet should you choose to utilize it.
In choosing keyphrases or keywords remember to start with and use popular but “not-so-competitive” terms since it would be very difficult to compete with more established websites if you have just been starting. The above-mentioned tools will help you determine which key words or phrases you could use.
One word keywords are very difficult if not impossible to compete with as it would have a more general scope compared with keyphrases. For example, if you are trying to write content for a company selling educational toys, choosing a keyword like “toys” would be a stupid idea since search engines would give around one hundred million hits for that particular keyword, while changing it into keyphrase like “toys for students” or “educational toys” would only have hits of around five million. This means that the chance that a web searcher would actually go to your website would be 100,000,000:1 under the keyword “toys” while choosing the keyphrase “educational toys” means a chance of 5,000,000:1, greatly increasing your chance of being visited. Besides, customers are more likely to refine their searches since using or typing just one word searches would mean being bombarded with a lot of unwanted information than they need, costing more time and effort.
Your keywords should specifically target (1) the product or service that you are offering and (2) what people actually type whenever they use the search engines in looking for products and services like yours. A good example would be when writing content for a company selling kilns for bricks, you should not optimize for the keyword “kiln for bricks” if most people actually type “oven for bricks” when they are looking for such equipment. It is useless to optimize for the term kiln when most people opt to type oven since a few if none will be looking for the term kiln.
You should also identify and discover various words and terms which are closely related to your keyword or keyphrases. Some key-terms and keyphrases are so intimately intertwined with others that one group associates it with a particular field while another choose to associate it with something else. One good example would be Cosmetic Surgery. Cosmetic Surgery is a medical procedure, so, it can be regarded as something related with medicine and surgery, while it is also correct to say that it is related with cosmetics and beauty. Since the fields of medicine, surgery, cosmetics and beauty are popular fields, optimizing for both the cosmetic and the surgical aspect of the keyphrase Cosmetic Surgery would bring more keyword hits for searches from individuals of both parts of the spectrum.
Another thing to consider is to integrate local terminologies or equivalents of your products or services when optimizing with key words or phrases. An “elevator” in the US would be a “lift” in the UK, a “truck” in the US would be a “lorry” in the UK, and the list goes on. When trying to sell products or services for a huge demographically different society, you should optimize for both of the groups as each would tend to search for the more familiar local term. Better yet, you could create different sites for different demographic groups, replacing particular key words and phrases; enabling you to cater to both.
Moreover, it would be wise to consider placing regional information or regional key words or phrases. Integrating regional information along with keywords and keyphrases enables users who prefer more specified searches to visit your website. You would also benefit from the limited competition because of the more specified search. Most people looking for products and services in the internet would certainly prefer to find what they need locally, so adding local regional information would definitely be of great help to you and your potential client. Another benefit is that you could add another keyword, which is the regional information to your existing key word or key phrase. For example, instead of having just “plumbing services” add “Atlanta” before ‘plumbing services’. This would give you an edge over competitors as it would profoundly decrease your competition.
About the content
Now that you have the key words and phrases you would need its time to plan about the general thrust of the content, on what the content should be like.
Generally, the main idea of writing content is for it to be able to provide useful information for visitors in your site. You are primarily writing for the readers, the human visitors of your site, and about the products and services that you have to offer. Secondary to that idea is to provide the search engines information so they could properly and accurately index your site according to its proper category, so anyone who wants to look for something in particular, through the use of search engines, would eventually find what he needs. In other words, your content should be both customer-oriented and search engine friendly.
In order to do that, you need to plan properly on how to do your copywriting. The whole text should be able to give them what they need and want to know about the products and services you have. Hence, it is highly advisable that you read a lot of information about the subject product or service before you write the actual copy. The goal is to become extremely knowledgeable about the product, so you can explore all the possibilities and play with its strengths and weaknesses and write everything that is needed.
One important thing to remember is to write content that is unique. Copying content is not only plagiarism and cheating but is also a serious offense that could cause painful penalties under existing Copyright laws. More and more Intellectual Property Rights watch dogs are reporting cases of content stealing and have gained some grounds over the years. Major search engines are now penalizing sites which illegally acquire content from other sources. Penalties include permanently putting sites under a blacklist, sort of a “permanent not to contact sites” for crawlers. Lawsuits and cases about web content writing are now increasing day by day, with more countries enacting laws on Intellectual Property Rights. The risks are just too great if you plagiarize and copy content. So make sure that you quote or place endnotes when you choose to use parts of other’s content.
And lastly, your content should be written in plain, simple, and natural language so as not to destroy the natural flow of words as you write. Highly technical words and terms should be reserved for highly technical discussions, and should be discouraged for everyday internet use.
About the mood
You might be wondering what a section about mood is doing in a seo copywriting article, well, it certainly has a LOT to do about content writing. The mood of the reader would certainly affect the way he views a certain product or service. If you did not properly take care of the emotional side of your customer with your writing, consider him gone. Individual moods are affected by a lot of factors; although primarily it is internal, external factors could also affect his mood significantly and luckily what that individual reads is one of them.
First of all, you should be ‘in the mood’ for writing. Good copies are mostly written by writers who are either inspired or enlightened with what they are about to write. Content writers should make sure that they are in this special mood because the consequence of the opposite would be a very bad copy. A reader is also likely to be ‘drawn’ by an emphatic copy written superbly which would eventually end up making the reader get what you are offering.
One thing you could do to achieve that is to utilize emotional appeal to the reader. Try to integrate personal articles like “you”, “we”, and “us” more often; try to get your visitors as involved as possible. Avoid being too passive as it would prevent you from establishing a connection or a relationship with your target reader.
Keep your readers or customers engaged with your site. Make them think and interact by asking questions, giving riddles or trivia. All these create an air of friendliness for potential customers, and once you’ve made them comfortable reading, they are more likely to respond positively to you. As much as possible make them do all their transactions within your site, give out all the details about what you are offering so that can know everything they need to know. Trying to get online visitors ask questions and product or service information offline will be too cumbersome for them so be as accessible as possible.
Knowing the right information will certainly give you the right results. Knowing what people want and what they are searching for will be one of the keys to make it big in this business. One of the things that can help you acquire this information is through case studies, surveys and polls that can be found all over the internet. Most of these studies provide general demographic information about internet users. If you’re lucky enough (since it is discouraged), you might even stumble with information regarding the searching habits of different demographics.
Once you have decided to use particular information from the internet, make sure that it is from a reliable author or source. Incorrect and inaccurate data proliferates all over the internet and it happens that you may be misled by others to use them, so, see to it that the articles or studies you are about to use are made and conducted by certified educational institutions or known private companies so you will not have any problems about their authenticity.
Another effective source of information from the internet are pages which rank high among search engines especially those that are related to yours. Analyze and learn the effective things they have done to increase their PageRank and apply them to your work. You could also check out the pages of your top competitors, you might learn a lot from them but be careful not to copy their stuff as it is since they will be constantly checking out their competition. Copyright guidelines are finally catching up with those who replicate content, ending blacklisted by major search engines.
SEO forums are also helpful in guiding you about the latest trends in the Search Engine Optimization business. Experts usually crowd in these forums to discuss the tricks and trends of the business. Moreover, new updates and trends about Search Engine Algorithms and Technology can be found on these forums so it is highly advisable that you check out those forums. However, the forums might be a little too complicated for beginners as terms often become too technical to understand even by seasoned users.
About the words
Now let us go down to business! It is time to know what are the keywords and keyphrases you will use for your copy! The key words and phrases would be the ones that you will use and try to integrate throughout the whole copy. It would be the bait you place in the hook in order to attract and hopefully catch your potential customers.
First of all, you and your client should brainstorm together (face to face if possible) about the keywords and keyphrases you want to use for the copy. It is important that you brainstorm together so that you will be able to stay true to the brand and have an effective choice for use in the search engine optimization efforts. You could make use of different keyword tools found in the web such as Keyword Discovery, GoodKeywords, WordTracker, Overture, etc. (issues regarding their usability and effectiveness will be discussed separately). These tools can be downloaded or used directly over the internet should you choose to utilize it.
In choosing keyphrases or keywords remember to start with and use popular but “not-so-competitive” terms since it would be very difficult to compete with more established websites if you have just been starting. The above-mentioned tools will help you determine which key words or phrases you could use.
One word keywords are very difficult if not impossible to compete with as it would have a more general scope compared with keyphrases. For example, if you are trying to write content for a company selling educational toys, choosing a keyword like “toys” would be a stupid idea since search engines would give around one hundred million hits for that particular keyword, while changing it into keyphrase like “toys for students” or “educational toys” would only have hits of around five million. This means that the chance that a web searcher would actually go to your website would be 100,000,000:1 under the keyword “toys” while choosing the keyphrase “educational toys” means a chance of 5,000,000:1, greatly increasing your chance of being visited. Besides, customers are more likely to refine their searches since using or typing just one word searches would mean being bombarded with a lot of unwanted information than they need, costing more time and effort.
Your keywords should specifically target (1) the product or service that you are offering and (2) what people actually type whenever they use the search engines in looking for products and services like yours. A good example would be when writing content for a company selling kilns for bricks, you should not optimize for the keyword “kiln for bricks” if most people actually type “oven for bricks” when they are looking for such equipment. It is useless to optimize for the term kiln when most people opt to type oven since a few if none will be looking for the term kiln.
You should also identify and discover various words and terms which are closely related to your keyword or keyphrases. Some key-terms and keyphrases are so intimately intertwined with others that one group associates it with a particular field while another choose to associate it with something else. One good example would be Cosmetic Surgery. Cosmetic Surgery is a medical procedure, so, it can be regarded as something related with medicine and surgery, while it is also correct to say that it is related with cosmetics and beauty. Since the fields of medicine, surgery, cosmetics and beauty are popular fields, optimizing for both the cosmetic and the surgical aspect of the keyphrase Cosmetic Surgery would bring more keyword hits for searches from individuals of both parts of the spectrum.
Another thing to consider is to integrate local terminologies or equivalents of your products or services when optimizing with key words or phrases. An “elevator” in the US would be a “lift” in the UK, a “truck” in the US would be a “lorry” in the UK, and the list goes on. When trying to sell products or services for a huge demographically different society, you should optimize for both of the groups as each would tend to search for the more familiar local term. Better yet, you could create different sites for different demographic groups, replacing particular key words and phrases; enabling you to cater to both.
Moreover, it would be wise to consider placing regional information or regional key words or phrases. Integrating regional information along with keywords and keyphrases enables users who prefer more specified searches to visit your website. You would also benefit from the limited competition because of the more specified search. Most people looking for products and services in the internet would certainly prefer to find what they need locally, so adding local regional information would definitely be of great help to you and your potential client. Another benefit is that you could add another keyword, which is the regional information to your existing key word or key phrase. For example, instead of having just “plumbing services” add “Atlanta” before ‘plumbing services’. This would give you an edge over competitors as it would profoundly decrease your competition.
About the content
Now that you have the key words and phrases you would need its time to plan about the general thrust of the content, on what the content should be like.
Generally, the main idea of writing content is for it to be able to provide useful information for visitors in your site. You are primarily writing for the readers, the human visitors of your site, and about the products and services that you have to offer. Secondary to that idea is to provide the search engines information so they could properly and accurately index your site according to its proper category, so anyone who wants to look for something in particular, through the use of search engines, would eventually find what he needs. In other words, your content should be both customer-oriented and search engine friendly.
In order to do that, you need to plan properly on how to do your copywriting. The whole text should be able to give them what they need and want to know about the products and services you have. Hence, it is highly advisable that you read a lot of information about the subject product or service before you write the actual copy. The goal is to become extremely knowledgeable about the product, so you can explore all the possibilities and play with its strengths and weaknesses and write everything that is needed.
One important thing to remember is to write content that is unique. Copying content is not only plagiarism and cheating but is also a serious offense that could cause painful penalties under existing Copyright laws. More and more Intellectual Property Rights watch dogs are reporting cases of content stealing and have gained some grounds over the years. Major search engines are now penalizing sites which illegally acquire content from other sources. Penalties include permanently putting sites under a blacklist, sort of a “permanent not to contact sites” for crawlers. Lawsuits and cases about web content writing are now increasing day by day, with more countries enacting laws on Intellectual Property Rights. The risks are just too great if you plagiarize and copy content. So make sure that you quote or place endnotes when you choose to use parts of other’s content.
And lastly, your content should be written in plain, simple, and natural language so as not to destroy the natural flow of words as you write. Highly technical words and terms should be reserved for highly technical discussions, and should be discouraged for everyday internet use.
About the mood
You might be wondering what a section about mood is doing in a seo copywriting article, well, it certainly has a LOT to do about content writing. The mood of the reader would certainly affect the way he views a certain product or service. If you did not properly take care of the emotional side of your customer with your writing, consider him gone. Individual moods are affected by a lot of factors; although primarily it is internal, external factors could also affect his mood significantly and luckily what that individual reads is one of them.
First of all, you should be ‘in the mood’ for writing. Good copies are mostly written by writers who are either inspired or enlightened with what they are about to write. Content writers should make sure that they are in this special mood because the consequence of the opposite would be a very bad copy. A reader is also likely to be ‘drawn’ by an emphatic copy written superbly which would eventually end up making the reader get what you are offering.
One thing you could do to achieve that is to utilize emotional appeal to the reader. Try to integrate personal articles like “you”, “we”, and “us” more often; try to get your visitors as involved as possible. Avoid being too passive as it would prevent you from establishing a connection or a relationship with your target reader.
Keep your readers or customers engaged with your site. Make them think and interact by asking questions, giving riddles or trivia. All these create an air of friendliness for potential customers, and once you’ve made them comfortable reading, they are more likely to respond positively to you. As much as possible make them do all their transactions within your site, give out all the details about what you are offering so that can know everything they need to know. Trying to get online visitors ask questions and product or service information offline will be too cumbersome for them so be as accessible as possible.
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