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Search Engine Optimization Services This is the first search engine optimization course I purchased back in 1997!
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SEO Basics - 8 Key Strategies For Online Business Success
The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be a big scary place for newbies. Most SEO professional companies charge astronomical prices that may or may not guarantee success.
The search engines are forever changing the way they rank websites and what is important to achieve a higher ranking. Even with these everchanging factors, there are 8 important points that you must use with your website that are not likely to change any time soon.
1. Domain Name
It is better to register a domain with a keyword in it, unless you are trying to brand yourself (think Coca Cola or Ebay). For instance, if your name is John Smith and you sell golf items you would be better off by registering a name like www.golfproducts.com instead of www.johnsmith.com.
Unfortunately with millions of website domain names being purchased all the time, finding a related domain name not already taken can be a daunting task. Still it is worth it in the end because it will carry more significance with the search engines.
2. Title Tag
This is an often overlooked place to input keywords. Have you ever been to a website and the bar at the top of the page just said 'untitled' or 'homepage'? That reflects how little the site designer knew about SEO. Always put a descriptive title on EVERY page of your website. Put something like 'Find golf clubs, golf clothes and the latest pro golf tips', instead of 'John's golf shop'.
Make sure not to go overboard and just list 10 or more keywords or long sentences in a row or the search engines will think you are trying to spam them. Think quality over quantity. The title tag should contain one keyword rich descriptive sentence.
3. Meta Tags
The importance of meta tags in today's SEO world is still being debated. It is still advisable to include a meta tag keywords and meta tag description in your code. A lot of times the search engines will pull your description tag to show in your websites search result. If nothing is there it may not show anything at all or it may pull the first sentence off of your page which might be completely irrelevent to your intended audience.
Do not, I repeat do not list 100 or more keywords in the keyword tag. This technique used to work years ago, but the search engines recognize this technique and will consider it spam. Place no more than 10 keywords in the meta keywords tag.
4. Link Strategies
Another important tip is to include keywords when linking to other websites or pages within your own site. For example it is better to have a sentence like this 'Find out the latest professional golf tips.' then to say 'click here for the latest professional golf tips.' This also applies to any outbound links to other related websites. Include keywords on the part you want the visitors to click on.
Same goes for incoming links to your site. If someone wants to link to your site give them the code to paste in their website instead of leaving them to do it on their own. Have something like 'Check out John's Golf shop for the best golf clubs, golf info and golf tips." This is much better than 'Click here for John's Golf Shop'. Search engines also like longer more descriptive links than just one or two words.
5. Relevant Content
Make sure that you provide only relevant information to what your actually offering or selling. If you have a bunch of unrelated info on a wide range of topics than the search engines will have a harder time pinpointing exactly what it is your site is about. So if your selling golf stuff stick to golf content, don't throw in articles or links about scuba diving.
6. PageRank
This is still a relatively new term and applies to an algorithm that google's search engine uses. Other search engines use similar strategies to google's PageRank also.
Basically PageRank is used to define how popular your website is. The more relevant inbound links you have coming into your website the higher your PageRank will be. Google also has a toolbar that you can download for free that will show you a site's PageRank. The best way to go about getting inbound links is to find related websites with a PageRank of 5 or higher. Then asking them to include a link to your site (giving them the proper code to paste in).
Another way you can receive a higher PageRank is to have a ton of content on many different pages and then linking all the pages together in a way that will raise your PageRank. With that said this type of strategy will not boost your PageRank tremendously, so if your site doesn't contain thousands of pages don't stress over it. It is important though to link strategically with keywords between the pages of your site.
You can download google's toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/
7.
This is an HTML header tag used to define size of text within the tag. Search engines place more importance on text that is placed within the H1 tag. It's like telling the search engines that 'hey this text is important to my site'. The problem is that it can look unsightly. There are ways around this if you know about CSS styles, but for this basic intro article just know that in the end most people won't be bothered by how the heading looks, and it will make the search engines like you more.
8. Creating Credibility
An often overlooked part of free publicity for your website is writing free articles like this one that relates to your intended audience. There are many websites on the internet where you can submit your articles for other people to place on their websites. I even employ this same strategy for my website. It's really a win win situation. They win because they get quality relevant content for their site and you win because your name and website info is included at the bottom of the article, driving traffic to your site.
You increase your inbound links (PageRank) and provide free publicity for your website. It gets your name out there branding you an expert in your field of expertise and provides free web traffic to your site.
Leah West
http://www.westmarketing-design.com Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success. Sign up for my Fr*ee ezine at http://www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm
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Search Engines - The Dominant Factor
Let's face facts - Search engines are starting to rule and dominate the way people advertise their products and services.
Not Ranking High Enough on Search Engines? Here?s Some Help!
Search engines are frugal things. (Froogle, too, haha! Sorry, lame joke) They take many, many things into consideration when ranking your pages. Below are some things you should do to be sure you're ranked as high as possible.
Are Your Keywords Making Money for You?
I built my website, it's perfect. My chosen subject of the website is Computer Support Services. Of course this is an example, but moving along, what should my keywords be?
Optimize Your Website or Get Lost In The Crowd!
It used to be that designing an attractive website to promote your company and products was fairly straightforward. After you designed your site and built a few keywords into the code, you would simply submit the site to the search engines or a directory, grab an iced tea and wait for the traffic.
Microsofts New Search Engine
I tried out Microsoft's new search engine (beta version) the other day. They have been working on it quite secretly now for almost a year. It has been rumored to be a Google killer once in full public release. They say its accuracy and ability to return relevant results will far surpass any other search engine on the Internet. That remains to be seen. I tried various combinations of single, double, and triple word/phrased searches to inspect the results.
Google Sitemaps: 7 Benefits You Cant Ignore
Google Sitemaps enables Webmasters to Directly Alert Google to Changes and Additions on a Website and that's just one of 7 Benefits.
Linking for Traffic not Positioning!
With more and more experts and search engine enthusiastsclaiming the right way and the wrong way to handle linkswapping, link exchanging or reciprocal linking!
10 Minutes to Your Google Sitemap
Google's calling your name...
SEO for CEOs ? Search Engine Optimization Unmasked for CEOs
If you're like most other CEOs, the term "search engine optimization" will mean very little. Either that or it means expense! But it doesn't have to be that way? If you feel like you're standing in a dark room handing money to strangers to get you in the search engines, then this article is for you.
Your Online Home-Based Business Can Lead To Search Engine Stress
As a member of several search engine optimization forums, I have recently noticed (especially since Yahoo recently decided to try their hand at competing with Google) that the stress level of many webmasters has gone way up. This applies not only to webmasters involved in Internet-based home businesses, but to webmasters in general.
SEO Quickstart - 3 Things You can Do to Improve Search Engine Rankings Right Now
Increasing your search engine rankings should certainly be one of your main goals if you are looking to increase your targeted traffic. The reason for this is if you improve your search engine rankings, you'll increase the amount of visitors your website receives, and when you increase traffic to your site you are going to increase customers and sales. All of this potential has webmasters spending a lot of time and money getting their pages in the top 10 results on large, popular search engines like Google. There are only 10 spots on the first page of a search and thousands upon thousands of web pages are competing for these top spots. You have to put together an SEO marketing plan and include some of the proven ways to increase your search engine rankings today. Read the following suggestions, implement them in your marketing plan, and watch your traffic increase!
The Two Most Important Things You Must Do For Google Top Ranking
Attaining a top ranking in Goggle or any other major search engine nowadays is a herculean task indeed. But webmasters are archieving this enviable position continuously. The common thing about many of these top sites is that they have plenty of good content and quality one way inbound links.
You Have More Web Sites Than You Think You Have: The Importance of Deep Submission
If I ask you how many web sites do you have? You may say "One, yes it is www.mycompany.com " or "two" in case you have a second organization or company. When I first began promoting my web sites I was, like most people, only thinking in terms of one web address, the url of my main page. And I thought that this main page was a difficult one to promote because it was the index page of a magazine that covered a wide variety of fields (environment, arts, science, politics, spirituality, etc). How could I optimize a page for so many keywords, which market could I focus on?
The Mystery of the Magical Keyword Density Formula
Keyword density. When it comes to SEO copywriting, this has to be one of the most talked about subjects. Why? Because keywords are the very foundation of search engine copywriting. Without keywords we wouldn't even have SEO copywriting. Because keywords (or more accurately, keyphrases) play such an important role in search engine copywriting, it might make sense that there are certain rules and regulations - certain formulas - that should be followed. It might make sense, but, I'm sorry to say, the mystery? the magic? is more like a myth.
Abandoned by Google! Googlebot, Wherefore Art Thou Googlebot?
As a search engine optimization specialist I often optimize existing web pages for small business clients, upload them to the site and see pages re-indexed by Google within a week. This only happens with existing business sites that have been online for a few years. Google seems to be updating their index as often as every other week at this point and older established sites that are already indexed seem to be re- crawled on that twice a month schedule on a fairly routine basis.
The Google Sandbox ? A Frustrating Inevitability or a Golden Opportunity?
Introduction
Does Google Hire Mad Scientists?
Online search giant, Google, often tests the waters for new services by rolling out a "beta" (first) version of an idea to gauge public reaction.
Is My Search Engine Optimization Working?
You've just built a website and can't wait to start popping up in the top listings of search engines. After all, you've paid this company even more money to create "optimized, search engine friendly pages, start building links and add lots of fresh content." If it takes weeks and months for the search engines to notice me, do I have to wait that long to see if the money was worth it?
SEO Expert Guide - Proposition Development (part 2/10)
It is literally amazing how many people start their online business presence by buying a domain name (close to their business name) and building a brochure-ware page. Only later do they turn their mind to optimizing their site for (i) their audience and (ii) the way their audience find them. Fewer still take a long, hard look at what their competitors are doing first.
Importance of Keywords in Anchor Text or Title Text
Keywords are indisputably, the single most important element of an anchor text.