Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Seven Red Hot Tips for Linking
Seven Red Hot Tips for Linking
1. Vary the keywords in your link ‘anchor’ text
Unless you provide only one product or service the chances are you will want to rank for many key phrases. One way to help achieve this objective is to change the link text you want all new sites to use periodically. Vary the anchor text slightly each time and by doing so you can cover more of your targeted key phrases. This approach can help your site rank for many keywords rather than just one or two.
If you do only provide one product or service on your web site it is still important to vary anchor text. If you sell ‘blue widgets’ then you could also use link text like ‘cheap blue widgets’ or ‘blue widget store’. This means your links take on a more natural feel and are much less likely to be penalised or filtered out by search engines for being ‘fake links’.
2. Set up your link information differently – create a link in context
Typically people set up their link information in a very similar way, however you could offer your link information with the hyperlink inside the description instead of at the beginning.
Imagine this is a description about your web site on a partner’s link page. Instead of a typical hyperlink followed by a description you could write a sentence describing your web site and then place “your descriptive hyperlink” inside it.
One reason for doing this is that it reads more naturally and search engines may value the link higher as it reads more like a narrative. Many webmasters will be happy to accept this style even if some do not. To cover yourself offer the link in context as a second option along with your regular link information, that way if some sites can’t support the layout you still get your link.
3. Vary where your links point
Try to vary where link partners point to on your site. It’s fine to have the majority of links pointing into your home page, however it can be beneficial to have some links pointing to other key pages on your web site as well. Taking this approach balances out your linking and can help raise the profile of more pages on your web site.
4. How to find potential link partners from your competitors
If a web site links to your competitors it may also link to yours, and in order to find these potential link partners you can use search engines. Not so long ago Google was useful for getting a lot of back link information about a site. Recently Google’s back link data is a lot less forthcoming and it now tends to show only a tiny percentage of the sites that are linking combined with a lot of internal link data. Whether the few web sites Google shows us are the ones it finds important or whether they are in fact red herrings we cannot say for certain. I would assume the latter.
Currently Yahoo is a better portal to check for backlinks. To generate a list of linking web sites on Yahoo simply go to http://www.yahoo.com and type the following into the Yahoo search bar.
linkdomain:www.mycompetitorwebsite.com
This will deliver up to date link information as read by Yahoo. The only downside with the information is that one site may appear many times if it is giving multiple links.
5. Alternate your description text
This is often overlooked, but there is no real advantage to be had if the description text supporting your inbound links is always identical. To avoid the possibility of a description ever being seen as ‘duplicate content’ alternate it when you can. If you combine it with varied anchor text [as in tip 1] you’re heading in the right direction.
6. Link to good related content from your web site
It seems like an obvious thing to say, but with so many people caught up in link exchanging you sometimes wonder if we’re losing site of the basics. If you have something useful to say on your site and can back it up with a useful link to another web site then do so. Not every link has to be reciprocated. This resourceful linking will allow your visitors to read around the subject. Linking to informative related content is useful for visitors and search engines quite like it too.
7. Seek out directory links
Links from good web directories can be some of the best links you can get for your web site. Aaron Wall has a ‘directory of directories’ at http://www.directoryarchives.com where you will find a great selection of search engine friendly directories. Some of the directories are free to get listed in whilst others may charge a fee.
About the Author
Gareth Davies is a web design consultant based in London, UK. For information on web design services please visit http://www.garethsketty.com or if you have any questions about this article or its contents please email Gareth at garethsketty at yahoo.co.uk
Seven Red Hot Tips for Linking by Gareth Davies
Do the Search Engines Know Your Website?
Do the Search Engines Know Your Website?
Are you considering a search engine promotion campaign to improve your website’s search engine visibility? To aid in your decision, have you checked your website to determine its search engine awareness?
Perhaps you may be thinking why do I need to check my website? Do you remember going to the doctor for an illness? Hopefully, your doctor performed some tests to diagnose your illness before prescribing your medication. If not, you may have gotten some very undesirable results. In the case of your website, you need to diagnose the patient and determine the extent of your website’s search engine visibility. Based on your findings, you can decide to focus on standard search results or paid search results.
Your checks should be done in the Google and Yahoo search engines since they are the major search engines in today’s marketplace. As an option, you should consider MSN since they have recently released their search engine. It is only a matter of time before they are considered a player, if not already. Your first check determines if your website is indexed in Google or Yahoo. Think about the card catalog in your library. Each book has a card in the card catalog signifying the indexing of the book in the library. In this exercise you’ll check if your website has a “card” in the Google or Yahoo card catalog.
The first exercise is opening your web browser to the Google – www.google.com, Yahoo – www.yahoo.com or MSN – www.msn.com website. Enter your website’s URL, www.yourdomainname.com, in the search box and review the search results. Your website’s domain name or URL should appear in the search results if your site is indexed.
If just the domain name or URL is listed, the website has been indexed but not crawled by the search engine spider. A domain name and several lines of descriptive text indicate the website has been crawled by the search engine spider to determine the website’s content. Also, look for the link “Cached Page” or a similar phrase. This is another indication the website has been crawled for content by the search engine. Now, you should know if your website is indexed and has a “card” in the search engine card catalog. Your second check evaluates the extent of your website’s indexing by determining which website pages are indexed by the respective search engine.
The second exercise is opening your web browser to the Google, Yahoo or MSN website. Enter the “site” command and your website’s URL in the search box in the format “site:www.yourdomainname.com” (quotation marks not required) and review the search results. All of your website’s pages indexed by the queried search engine should be listed. At the top of the search results screen look for “Results X – Y of about Z from www.yourdomainname.com” or a similar phrase. The value for Z indicates the total number of pages indexed by the queried search engine for your website.
In addition, you might see the comment “repeat the search with the omitted results included” in the results listing. Since the search engine does not always show the entire listing, you can click the link and view the complete list of your website’s indexed pages. Your third check determines the number of inbound links from other websites to your website. The number of inbound links is very important in the ranking algorithms of many of the search engines. The commands for this exercise are slightly different between the search engines. We’ll review the commands for the three major search engines. The other search engines have similar commands.
Google & MSN
Open your web browser to the Google or MSN website. Enter the “link” command and your website’s URL in the search box in the format “link: www.yourdomainname.com” (quotation marks not required) and review the search results.
All the external website pages linked to your website and indexed by the queried search engine should be listed. At the top of the search results screen look for “Results X – Y of Z linking to www.yourdomainname.com” or a similar phrase. The value for Z indicates the total number of externally linked pages to your website.
Yahoo
Open your web browser and go to the Yahoo website. Enter the “linkdomain” and “-site” command and your website’s URL in the search box in the format “linkdomain:www.yourdomainname.com -site:www.yourdomainname.com” (quotation marks not required). The “-site” command is used exclude the internally linked website pages from the results.
Review the search results. All the external website pages linked to your website and indexed by Yahoo should be listed. At the top right of the search results screen look for “Results X – Y of Z linking to www.yourdomainname.com.” The value for Z indicates the total number of externally linked pages to your website.
Do not be alarmed if the displayed results from Yahoo and MSN are significantly different from Google. Recently, Google began displaying limited or no results from the “link” command. The general conclusion from the search engine optimization community was that Google felt disclosing the link information might possibly share too much information regarding their ranking algorithm and its impact on a specific website. From these three simple checks you should have determined if the search engines know the existence of your website and be prepared to select the proper search engine promotion campaign. A pay-per-click search engine campaign would be a good choice if your website’s search engine visibility is limited and the time deadline to achieve your desired search engine rankings is short. If the time to achieve the desired search engine rankings is not critical to your website’s marketing plans, then a search engine optimization campaign to improve the standard search results could be a logical decision.
About the Author
Chet Childers is a successful Internet marketer utilizing both pay-per-click marketing and search engine optimization to increase website visibility and profitability. Click http://www.ThePayPerClickMarketer.com and enroll in our e-course, “Discover Tips and Secrets for Pay-Per-Click Marketing Success,” or visit http:www.ChetChilders.com.
Do the Search Engines Know Your Website? by Chet Childers
THE ABCs OF SEO – Search Engine Optimization
THE ABCs OF SEO – Search Engine Optimization
If you want to be found in the search engines, it is important that you add search engine optimization to your action list. In a nutshell, search engine optimization–or SEO for short–is the process of making your web pages “search engine friendly.”
SEO is a relatively new marketing industry. Although there are many purported experts, most of us who call ourselves SEO specialists are learning. The search engines are constantly in flux, so SEO techniques that worked yesterday may not necessarily work tomorrow. As a result, it is exceedingly important to keep up with the fervent pace of the Internet, and the search engines in particular.
One of the frustrations of search engine placement is that your rankings are constantly fluctuating. The key to a successful search engine optimization campaign is creativity, perseverance and practice, practice, practice. Do not try to fool the search engines by “tricking” them with unsavory techniques (e.g., keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text) because you will risk having your web site lose favor with the search engines, or worse, getting banned altogether.
If you are developing a new web site or redesigning an old one, now is a good time to think about search engine optimization. This article will describe the process of optimizing your web pages for the search engines, as well as highlight some of the other components that are important for a successful search engine marketing campaign.
WRITING KEYWORD-RICH WEB COPY
I’m sure you’ve heard the old cliché: Content is king. Well, you know what, it is! Although the Internet is graphic-rich, it is a text-based medium. Information is what your visitors are seeking. If you web site doesn’t present the information they want, don’t forget your competitor’s web site is only one mouse click away.
Search engines need copy to know what your web site’s theme is and how your site should be indexed in their directory. If your home page consists solely of a Flash movie or an image map, there will be nothing for the search engines to index. Flash is cool, but it is not so cool when your web site doesn’t come up in search engine results.
So, how do you write keyword-rich copy?
The first thing you need to do is identify the keyword phrases that are important and relevant to your web site. For instance, how would you describe your company, products and services? More importantly, how would your visitors describe your company, products and services? Although the answer may seem like a no- brainer, it really isn’t, because you need to think outside of the box. You need to get into your visitor’s head and think like your visitor. What search terms would they use to find your web site?
A good place to start your keyword research is by looking at your log files. What search terms are your visitors using to find you? Armed with this information, you can begin researching the popularity of those terms. Researching your keywords is a very important task, because if you target the wrong terms, your traffic will suffer. Although your site may rank number one for some obscure term, if no one is searching for that term, your site will not be found in the search engines.
There are a number of handy tools available online to help you begin building your list of relevant keywords. Overture (formerly Goto.com) offers a Search Term Suggestion Tool on its web site that will not only tell you how many times a particular keyword phrase was queried in the past month, it’ll also present you with a list of alternative terms to consider for your search engine optimization campaign. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
In addition to utilizing keyword suggestion tools to research your keywords, I highly recommend brainstorming keywords with your co-workers, employees, friends and family members. Better yet, ask your clients and customers what terms they would use to search for your web site. Brainstorming keywords will teach you a lot about how others think and use the Internet to find information.
Once you have identified your keywords, you will need to integrate them into the body of your web page. Your sentences need to be intelligible and grammatically correct. Don’t forget: Your web copy will be read by human beings, as well as the search engines. If your web copy doesn’t make sense, your visitors will hit their back button never to return again. Bad web copy will defeat the whole purpose of your search engine optimization campaign.
WRITING YOUR META TAGS
The most important tag in the header section of your web page is the title tag. The title tag is displayed in the bar at the top of your browser window–above the toolbar. Many webmasters do not use the title tag properly. For example, their page will be titled “Home” or “Welcome,” or worse yet “untitled,” because they don’t include a title at all. The search engines place a lot of relevance on the words contained within the title tag, so be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases when writing your title tag. This tag is generally limited to 60 characters, so choose your words with care.
The next important tag in the header section is the description meta tag. This tag is used to describe your web page. Like the title tag, many of the search engines will extrapolate this information to summarize your web site. Again, be sure to include your targeted keyword phrases.
The third and least important tag in the header section is the keywords meta tag. Because of abuse by unscrupulous webmasters, the keywords tag is ignored by many of the search engines. Even so, some do use it, so it doesn’t hurt to include it. Like your title and description tag, choose your keywords carefully. Do not include keywords that are not included in the body of your web copy or irrelevant to the theme of your site.
LINK POPULARITY
Much is said about link popularity, but what is it exactly?
A few years ago, people were joining “link farms” to increase their link popularity, but today that is frowned upon and can actually be detrimental to your quest for higher rankings in the search engines. Now the emphasis is more on the quality of the links pointing to your web site versus the quantity.
Many of the major search engines use link popularity to gauge the relevancy of your site in its search results. Plus, links are what makes the web go-round. Many webmasters have the notion that links are bad because they are sending visitors off of their web site. Although this is true, links to and from web sites that complement yours helps to build credibility and sets the stage for making your web site an authority in your field.
Much is written about the importance of getting links from directories like Yahoo!, Looksmart and the Open Directory Project, because they are reviewed by human beings. If you want a link in the first two, however, it will cost you money. A listing in Yahoo! and Looksmart is considered “paid inclusion.” Your marketing dollars will be well spent, though, because listings here will not only generate increased traffic, it will add greatly to your web site’s link popularity.
SUBMITTING TO THE SEARCH ENGINES
Once your web page is fully optimized, it is time to submit it to the search engines. Although there are hundreds of search engines on the Internet, only a handful are truly important. Recent statistics show the top three search engines as:
#1 MSN #2 Yahoo! #3 Google
Although there are automated services that promise to get you listed on thousands of search engines, it is recommended that you manually submit your site to the top search engines. Some of the search engines view automated submissions as spam and will not list your site. Others put a higher priority on manual submissions. And others–such as Inktomi–required an annual fee to list your site. It can take weeks (sometimes even months!) to get listed, so again, be patient. The search engines are important to the success of your web site, so treat them with the respect they deserve. Most of all, do not over-submit!
For more information about search engine submissions, request a copy of my article “Web Site Promotion 101″ at mailto:sitepromotion101@sendfree.com
TRAFFIC REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Once you have allowed an appropriate amount of time to lapse (I usually wait six weeks), it is time to generate some reports to confirm the success of your search engine optimization campaign. Search engine positioning reports provide a wealth of information, such as your site’s position in the major search engines, how you rank on your targeted keyword terms and phrases, which sites rank above and below you, where you’ve declined in rankings, and so on.
To automate the process of generating your search engine positioning reports, download a free trial of 1stPlace Software’s highly-acclaimed WebPosition Gold at http://www.webposition.com/
In addition to your search engine positioning reports, be sure to regularly check your traffic logs. Is your traffic increasing? Are people finding your site with the search terms you targeted? Which of the search engines are referring visitors to your site?
There are many variables that affect rankings, including:
1. Keyword density 2. Link popularity 3. Click popularity 4. Keywords in the title 5. Keywords in the description tag 6. Keywords in the keywords tag 7. Keywords in the names of linked pages and in the linked words 8. Keywords in the alt tags 9. Keywords in names of images 10. Paying for ranks 11. Listing in online directories
Source: Search Engine Optimization and Placement: An Internet Marketing Course for Webmasters by Renee Kennedy and Terry Kent. http://www.thewritemarket.com/seo-book.shtml
CASE STUDY OF GRIEF LOSS & RECOVERY
In October 2001, my web site, Grief Loss & Recovery (http://www.grieflossrecovery.com), was averaging 98 visitors a day and 573 page views. Reviewing my traffic logs, I noted that the most popular search term for my site was “grief poems,” so I decided to optimize my site for that phrase.
Since October, my traffic has steadily climbed the charts.
In March 2002, my daily unique visitors averaged 325 and my page views 1962, an increase of 69 percent and 70 percent, respectively.
With regard to my rankings in the search engines, they have also improved considerably. For example, for the search phrase “grief poems” in Google, my site ranks number one out of 102,000 results; and for the search term “grief,” my site ranks 15 out of 1,690,000.
As for traffic referred by the search engines, Google far exceeds all other search engines in driving traffic to my site with 2,953 referrals in March, followed by Yahoo at 1,428. (In comparison, my October 2001 numbers showed Yahoo referring 535 visitors and Google 423.)
All-in-all, I am pleased with the results of my first attempt at optimizing Grief Loss & Recovery and am beginning to note similar results with some of the other web sites I have recently optimized.
When playing the search engine optimization game, patience is important, because results do not happen overnight.
CONCLUSION
To be competitive online, your web site needs to be search engine friendly. Search engine optimization is a function of Internet marketing and is the most cost-effective means of marketing to your target audience. With an estimated 84 percent of web users turning to the search engines to find information online, it is important that your site rank within the top 30 results if you want to be found. A successful search engine optimization campaign will not only boost your rankings in the search engines, it will bring qualified customers and prospects to your web site who are already on the web searching for your products and services.
For more information about search engine optimization and positioning, visit:
Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Search Engine World http://www.searchengineworld.com/index.htm
Academy of Web Specialists http://www.academywebspecialists.com/
Spider Food http://www.spider-food.net/
Plus be sure to subscribe to:
Adventive I-Search http://www.adventive.com/lists/isearch/summary.html
About the Author
Joanne Glasspoole is the editor/publisher of CYBER QUEST. Each issue is jam packed with original reports, news briefs, cool Webmaster tools, and more. To subscribe, send email to Majordomo@lists.kdv.com with “subscribe cyberquest” in the body of your message. Visit Joanne’s web site at http://www.glasspoole.com
THE ABCs OF SEO – Search Engine Optimization by Joanne Glasspoole