Yahoo! Site Explorer is undergoing a makeover to provide a more dynamic interface for users. Whilst Site Explorer doesn’t offer anywhere near as much information as Google Analytics, the feature can be helpful in the right hands.

In the past, Site Explorer has enabled users to as submit feeds, delete URLs or report spam. One of their best functions has been the Dynamic URL Rewriting. The new look:

[ysearchblog]provides a more dynamic interface to accommodate future feature roll-outs. The new interface also includes a new Site Summary page to provide statistics for authenticated sites. On top of this, we’re also increasing the number of rules for Dynamic URL Rewriting that you can enter from 3 to 10.

Having had a short play with the new look, I must say it does feel more comfortable to use. However don’t expect a wealth of information unless you have set up for it previously.

Yahoo!’s blog mentioned future feature roll-outs. It will be interesting to see what they include in these rollouts. For now, Google Webmaster has far more options and provides a lot more information than Site Explorer. Maybe over time Yahoo! can compete - for now, those that like Site Explorer will stick to it and those that like Google Webmaster will stay on that side of the fence. There is a use for both.

Sounds like a novelty question - do you train your search engine optimization consultant? I would hope he would train me a little so I could recognize when their work was succeeding. Believe it not, if your don’t train, or perhaps a better word is educate, your consultants, they will struggle to get your pages to the top of the SERP’s.

When I talk about educating your search engine marketing consultants, I am of course referring to your business, your marketing methods and materials and product lines. You would be surprised how hard it is to get this information out of some website owners.

Get my page to number one, but I won’t reveal anything about my business! Hello - your consultant is part of a team now. You are all supposed to work together. It can help an SEO consultant if you sit down and have an extensive discussion with them through your business setup. What you sell. How you sell. What your products are and where they come from. This is all important information. If you have been marketing then what sort of marketing materials have you been using.

Then there is the organizational structure. Do you want to highlight important staff members? Will they be available to answer questions from customers?

As a website owner, your role is to educate your consultant on all matters relating to your business. They are in effect another new staff member that needs to go through some form of staff induction. Once an SEO consultant has this understanding, they are ready to go to work on your site.

Firefox is becoming one of the most popular browsers in use and every year it seems to drag more and more Internet Explorer users onside. One of the strengths of Firefox is the number of add-ons you can download and install. SEO tools haven’t gone unnoticed and there are many add-ons written for this area.

Finding the best Search Engine Optimization tools can be a little daunting as there are so many. If you have upgraded to Firefox 3.0 then the choice is a little easier as many of the add-ons haven’t been updated yet. Some of the more useful SEO tools include:

KGen:
KGen (Keyword Generator) is an extension that allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web page. This can be quite helpful when submitting pages to social bookmarking sites. Use the keywords found as tags when submitting.

SearchStatus:
Displays the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with keyword density analyser, nofollow highlighting and related links. The nofollow check can be a handy tool when looking for link options.

RankQuest SEO
RankQuest toolbar includes 30 intuitive SEO tools. One of the more comprehensive tools available for Firefox.

If you are still using the older versions of Firefox then Niche Watch Tool is a good option. Hopefully this SEO tool will be available for version 3 at some time soon.

These tools can provide a lot of information on many of the sites around you including your competition. Don’t forget to use the tools on your web pages as they can provide some important information that can help to fine tune your online marketing efforts. It is no good knowing what the competition is doing if you don’t really know what is happening on your site.

SeRoundTable has a series of live blog posts from the SES at San Jose that is currently underway. Some of the articles are quite fascinating and really worth a read. What is particularly fascinating is the difference of opinions between SEO professionals on a range of topics.

Some of the best topics from day three include:

Black Hat / White Hat: Playing Dirty with SEO: An amusing banter on this topic that really didn’t define white hat or black hat. If you read between the lines, many appear to be gray hat!

Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues: an interesting discussion particularly since Google claim that this is no longer a major issue. The general consensus was that duplicate content is a major issue and should be dealt with. They also discussed various techniques to resolve duplicate content issues.

Link Building Basics: This is an excellent discussion and well worth reading. I like the statement that link building is not developing links to a site or page, rather, it is a link to a document.

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds: If you have a web site but don’t have a blog then I suggest you read this discussion. The support for blogs and what they can do for a website was strong. They pretty much back up what we have said about blogs for quite a long time now.

There are many more transcripts of the conversions which will help to clear some of the air around search engine optimization and what it can do for your site.

We all use search engines from time to time, and if you are a frequent searcher you will know that at times the results returned can be quite frustrating. Is it the fault of the search engine, the websites, or the search engine optimization programs that are in place?

They are all to blame to a certain extent. You could also throw in the searcher too since their search phrase may have been vague. At present, this is the system we have. Users of search engines will be vague in their search terms. Search engines, particularly those that place a heavy emphasis on age, will often return stale, outdated or perhaps even irrelevant content. I can’t tell you how many times I have personally made a search and received results from 2005 or even older outdated information.
I often get a friend or colleague to undertake searches for me so I can monitor what terms they use and how they phrase their searches. This information can be important and very valuable to understanding the psychographic of your visitor that you might be targeting for your site.

One of the reasons that many website owners fail in their search engine optimization strategies is simply because they are too close to their own business. When they start to define keywords, they are naturally drawn to what is familiar to them. Searchers do not have that inside knowledge. They are not necessarily going to know jargon or technical terms.

A good example of this is when a customer rings up with a problem. Just getting to the seat of the problem can be a real lesson in how customers (and internet searchers) use our language to find information. If you have ever worked a customer service desk you will understand this issue.

Imagine the conversation:

“The machine isn’t working properly”
“Can you describe the problem to me”
“It makes a knocking noise”
“Where is the knocking noise coming from?”
“Somewhere inside the machine”

I could go on but you get the general idea. When searching for help this person would properly use a phrase such as “knocking noise in motor of ****”. If you have a page that handles problems and one of the problems is the knocking noise, the perhaps a long tail keyword phrase like this might be a good place to implement this.

People who use search engine seem to fall into two categories. They either enter in one or two word searches, or then enter detailed (often too detailed) phrases. Monitoring your own search activities, particularly when you are frustrated with the results, may help to define how you can best optimize your own site to snare those search terms.

Search engine optimization is often best developed by those who can stand back away from the business and develop keyword phrases on what users are likely to use; not based on what you would like them to use.

There are some things that will turn a prospect off before he reads the first word of your website. Some of them you probably already know but they do bear repeating.

When the internet first came into being websites were patched together, and worked for their purpose since nobody knew any better. Now the internet stroller will be a more educated and discerning individual. As the user gets wiser so must the provider.

Take a look at your website and see how many of these you find. They could be why your visitors are leaving as quickly as possible.

• Huge bold headlines that take half a page to see. The reader is not interested in your headlines he is interested in what you are providing. Headlines should not be over a size 40.

• Too much text. I have seen pages that look link someone spilled the word back on the page. I did not even read that page to see if the information that I wanted was there. Use enough test to tell the reader what you are offering, but keep it short.

• Highlighted keywords. There is not a great need to do this anyways, and the color just goops up your page.

• More than one free item link on each page. Today’s reader is hesitant to click on links and open emails to start with because of viruses. Plus their time is limited, they don’t want or need a bunch of pdfs that they won’t read.

• The phrase ‘But Wait, There’s More’ This is the biggest turn off. Show them don’t tell them. And most important get a thesaurus and find better and different words.

Take a look at your website, I know that in an average day one out of every two websites I see have at least 2 of these no-no’s in them. Small changes from this list is likely to keep your visitors on the page longer and longer.

Search engine optimization is not a static field. There are no rules and regulations and the major search engines will not tell you how to optimize your sites. In fact the search engines change their ranking methods at will and leave us all trying to guess how to interpret the changes.

The one area where search engines seem to be going is in personalization and being able to not only read content, but understand it as well. These two issues may have a long term effect on search engine optimization strategies.

What is likely to happen in the future is that a search engine will look at the behavior of a searcher and return results based on that behavior. That is the ‘personalization’ of web search. The long term reality is that we cannot optimize a site for each individual human being.

The second aspect is a search engines ability to actually understand content. Keywords will have a lower value in rankings; it will be the content as a whole that is considered when matching a search query.

Loose headings and content that is not terribly specific will rank quite lowly, no matter how keyword rich or link heavy the page is. Quality content that is quite specific from title down to content and links to other relevant pages will rate highly, irrespective of keyword strength or link numbers.

For search engines like Google, this is their ultimate goal - being able to return results that are relevant to the search phrase and that solves the searchers query.

What will be hard for many sites is the creation of content that is specific from the heading down the content including any links. One of the areas that search engines will focus on for relevant quality is the other social sites.

Search engine optimization will then need to concentrate on content, ensuring it is tight, specific and can solve a problem or provide relevant information. We need to understand what is happening today and tomorrow and be prepared to make adjustment quickly.

A good search engine optimization program can significantly increase your traffic flow and visitors that will generate sales for your business. More importantly, and often overlooked, is that this traffic is quality traffic. How do you define quality?

Many years ago, one definition for quality was, “fulfills the purpose to which it was designed”. That definition is still okay - but probably still a little stilted for what we need in today’s world. If you can define ‘quality traffic’ when it comes to your website then you have a good starting point. Quality of course has to be realistic in its interpretation. There are also many other factors that affect the outcome such as your business model, website factors such as content, call to actions, etc.

If your search engine optimization program focuses on highly relevant keywords and your link building campaign is able to acquire a relevant and quality links, chances are the traffic flow to your website will increase substantially over time.

These visitors are there because the search results suggested you could fulfill their needs. If you can fulfill their needs then you will achieve a high conversion rate. Don’t be fooled into thinking that high conversion rates equate to the quality of the visitor. You can receive good quality visitors who are ready to buy, however, if your site is crappy they won’t stay - you have in effect scared away a quality visitor.

This is where you can find the definition of a quality visitor - ‘a visitor who arrives because there is a presumption that can provide what they are looking for’. Your web pages now need to complete that presumption. Search engine optimization can produce the quality visitors, it cannot complete the sale, lead form, etc.

Good search engine optimization practices suggest that links, particularly internal links, should have appropriate anchor text; that is, anchor text that uses keywords or keyword phrases.

Most website owners who are skilled in search engine optimization techniques know this already. However, sometimes the concentration is on deep content pages and the obvious links are left un-optimized.

Examples that you may see frequently include the ‘About’ page, Sitemap and Contact pages. These URL’s can often be optimized as well, particularly if you want to increase the number of keywords on a page.

The optimization of these pages can be straightforward. For example, you could link your ‘About’ page using the anchor text of ‘About site name‘, the sitemap’s anchor could be ‘sitename’s Sitemap‘.

One link that is rarely optimized with keywords is the email or ‘Mailto’ url. This link normally looks like:

(a href=”mailto:yourname@yourwebsite.com”) Email Me (/a)
(note: replace the brackets with the greater than > and less than < signs)

The text ‘Email’ could be changed to include a keyword or site name as well.

There are many internal links that could benefit your pages by simply applying a few basic techniques. Sometimes, the obvious is overlooked.

Having a good search engine optimization program is fine and chances are you will rank well in the search results. However, I am finding that more and more websites are concentrating too heavily on search engines.

Before undertaking any website activity, your number one question has to be - “why am I doing this, who is it for?” If your answer is the search engines, then quit now, pack your website away and go home.

If your answer is the reader, then start to work on your search optimization first. By search optimization I am referring to what your visitors sees when they arrive. SEO can help deliver quality traffic. However, you have to have quality content to keep your visitor from fleeing, and perhaps take the next step be that buying, subscribing or bookmarking to return again.

When I first started computing many years ago, there was a simple saying:

“GIGO - garbage in - garbage out.”

The same principles apply to your websites today. Provide garbage to your visitors and you will get garbage in the results.

Create your site for the visitor first and foremost. It makes good sense to include good search engine optimization techniques along the way; however, the principle focus needs to be on your visitor. People are becoming far more sophisticated in their expectations today. If they find your site at the top of the search results, it almost indicates a vote of quality so that is what they expect to find.

Give them a site full of keyword stuffed content that makes reading difficult, the visitor will disappear. Some sites, because they insist on placing keywords everywhere, have content that feels and reads like a poorly translated instruction manual.

While ranking well in the major search engines is important to get those visitors in, search optimization is important to give those visitors what they now demand. If you let them down, ultimately, you let yourself down.

If you are a business owner with a brick & mortar location in the greater Boston area and have not had much success in the online space and are eagerly looking for a guiding light to help you with your online marketing knowledge than the eBusiness Symposium might just be the answer for you. This Boston internet marketing event will help you get started with your online marketing campaign. As a local business owner at some point in time it is very important to learn the basics of online marketing in order to keep business healthy, growing and keeping up with the times. More and more local customers search online to find what they need so it is important to stay on the radar of those potential customers.

Hosted by Brick Marketing president and SEO expert Nick Stamoulis he will go over all topics such as the ABC’s of SEO and local internet marketing to help boost local awareness of your product or service. Nick Stamoulis brings 12+ years of online marketing experience to this event only offering good quality information that is guaranteed to help improve your company’s visibility. Nick is the editor and publisher of 7 relevant website marketing blogs and is an active member in groups such as SEMPO and the American Marketing Association. Nick Stamoulis also specializes in one-on-one website consulting for anybody looking to work directly with Nick Stamoulis.

The ABC’s of SEO is designed to teach SEO techniques to those who are looking to increase sales, leads and visitors through all the major search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN. This is a judgment free event for all those beginners that might be timid to attend an event such as this. This Boston internet marketing event is constructed for those who don’t know where to turn for help and advice. At this event all questions are good questions. Not everybody has the ability to learn the popular SEO techniques that many are using so now is the time to learn as much as you can from an expert in the field. This event will teach you not only the basics but also some advanced programs such as social marketing website building and newsletter marketing. This event is a one stop shop to hit all angles of your online business. This program will teach you how to successfully tackle up to date online marketing techniques to further your knowledge and help grow your online business the right way.

Don’t wait until the last minute, early bird registrations going through September 12th. Save $25 per registration by doing it now. For more information on how to register please visit the website today and pre-register for your space.

Some META tags are used on a daily basis to fine tune a website page for the search engines. There are however, several META tags that many people have never heard of, yet should probably either have in their knowledge cabinet to use where appropriate, or have already used if they knew they existed.

There are times when you do a search only to find the results are either out of date, or no longer available. A good example would be a blog or website that runs a competition. Once the competition has been completed, do you really want that page indexed and being found in the search results? Stale pages can often be a downer when it comes to your reputation.

META tags that experienced optimization experts employ if needed is the “unavailable after” tag. This is used in the following format:

META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”unavailable after: 31-Dec-2007 23:59:59 EST”

Used in the pages header, this instructs Google to remove the page from the index at 11:59 pm on the 31st August 2008 (note the date format).

This can be an important tag for pages used for special promotions like Valentine’s Day, Christmas or any other event. It can take a day for the page to be removed from index. These pages often contain little in the way of value when it comes to search engine optimization strategies. Rather than remove the pages altogether, using this tag maintains the page but removes it from the search engine index.

The second META tag that is often ignored is the “No Archive” tag. If you have a page that is constantly changing, for example you may be publishing sports or news results, or topically for today, reporting on the Olympic Games medal counts.

Search engines, when they index a page, take a snapshot that is archived. This is available to anyone to view when they do a search. If you are constantly updating your page, using the Olympic Gold medal tally as an example, your archive page will be out of date the moment your update your content. The search engine may not come back for 24 hours or more to re-index and take another archive snapshot.

The “No Archive” tag prevents the search engine from taking that snapshot. This means you won’t have any stale pages sitting in the search engine archives. Placed in the header, the META tag would look like:

META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE”

These are little known and little used META tags that can have an influence on your search engine optimization strategies. Using them in the right place at the right time can prevent problems down the track - particularly when it comes to searchers and your reputation.

One of the core’s of excellent search engine optimization is that content is king and that you cannot have too much content - so long as it is good content. However, anyone who is keen on analytics will know that only 20-25% of your pages actually draw significant traffic.

Whether it is 20% or 50% is not relevant although the more pages you have, the more traffic you will receive. What is important is what you do with those pages that do draw the traffic. In effect, they are your ‘landing’ pages for any internet searches.

The pages that draw significant traffic need to be optimized carefully to encourage the visitor to complete the visit. If they are potential customers, you want them heading to your sales pages, or better yet, to your checkout. All pages should have a call to action; however your popular pages should be quite specific in that call to action. Using a template call to action across all pages could be a mistake and lead to lost sales.

Pages that draw significant traffic also have an important role to play in the sites overall SEO strategy. Having clear links to related content help to spread some of the link value to those pages. They also help to deliver traffic to pages that may help to close a sale or develop a lead.

Your top URL’s can also be leveraged to boost the optimization results of other pages. By interlinking pages you may find that search results pages show your top URL followed by an indented listing for an associated URL. This can be an invaluable asset in the search results.

Knowing which pages draw the most traffic can also help to refine your SEO strategies to further boost those pages ranking to deliver even more traffic. Leveraging your top URL’s is a smart move. Do you know which pages deliver the majority of visitors to your site?

There are many website owners that undertake their own search engine optimization programs and they get good results. There are also those that try to do it themselves, however, they spend as much time watching numbers as they do optimizing their sites.

Watching numbers, in itself, is not wrong. Where DIY SEO gets into trouble is in the constant tinkering. The numbers aren’t right so I have change something. But what? I know, I will try this. Of course it doesn’t make much of difference, but you feel good because you tried. Besides which, you read somewhere that this is what you should do. A well executed optimization campaign takes time, patience and a well defined process. If you change too many on site factors then it will be very difficult to attribute the outcome to any one factor that you changed on your website.

I called this post SEO on Sundays. Checking your stats should be a regular event - but not ten times a day. Set a day where you can sit down and check your stats and actually analyze them. If you feel things are not working well, use those stats to plan your next moves. Rather than tinkering at edges, work to make changes where they are really needed. Internal links may need work; perhaps you need to work on gaining external relevant links, etc. I recommend that when you make a change to your site, write down what you changed, the date and why.

Being organized and planning your search engine optimization strategies will produce positive long term effects. When checking your stats, just remember that changes can take months to produce results. Don’t expect to add a few internal links and see things change overnight.

The key to successful DIY SEO is to have a plan of attack and to have the patience to see that work produce results. If you don’t really understand your stats, stop reading them until you do; then read and analyze them on a regular basis - say every Sunday afternoon.

Human nature being what it is, we are always looking for that little extra edge, the shortcut that will get us ahead of the rest. Search Engine Optimization is much like an Olympic sport, you can train hard, put in the extra work; and, if everything comes together on the day, you can strike gold.

You can of course try a few short cuts. EPO or a similar performance enhancing substance. Rather that training harder, you let the chemicals do it for you. In SEO, this is known as ‘black hat’ techniques.

Some smart people undertake both. They work hard to get fit, and then add a little extra to boost their performances. Sure, they win gold, often in world record times. However, as time is starting to show, the performance enhancing tricks are being revealed and the reputations, the gold medals, and the income from sponsors is gone out the door.

The moral to this story. There is no magic bullet!

SEO is like training for an event. You work hard on your site to deliver ‘white had’ optimization strategies that bring you to the finals; you are there ready to win. With SEO, while first is nice, anywhere on the front page of the search results for your keywords is a win.

Rather than look for the magic bullet, spend your time developing what really counts. Good keyword selection, content, and link building strategies. You’ll bring a home medal of some sort - a medal that will last and not be stripped from you at a later date.