I’m going to share a very basic, simple way to increase page views. It doesn’t involve adding new pages to your website or rewriting content. All you really need to do is add one element on each of your web pages that will get people to click over more and visit your other pages. You can hard code this element in HTML or provide a widget. Either way and you can increase your page views.

There are two ways that are very effective in doing this and which one you use depends on what you want to accomplish, but here they are:

• Popular pages method – With the popular pages method you highlight your most popular content on each page of your website. A version of this is to list the popular pages within a section of you website. Either way you do it, by highlighting the popular pages on your website for your visitors you are telling them that other people find those pages valuable and they should too. It works as people will click over and visit those other pages.
• Relevant pages method – The relevant pages method is simply telling your site visitors which other pages are similar to the one they are on now. A little box with a list of other pages the visitor might be interested in based on what she just visited is all it takes. Most visitors will visit at least one other page.

As mentioned above, you can hard these box areas with HTML or widgetize them. With HTML, particularly for the popular pages method, you’ll be updating a lot as pages move from one popularity ranking to another. If you see a lot of fluctuation in popularity then you might want to widgetize this feature. With the relevant pages method, if you don’t see much fluctuation in the relevant content from page to page then HTML boxes might be the way to go. A widget for relevant content won’t work too well if you are planning to share your widget.

However, a widget for popular content can be a big addition to your website or blog. Since you can share your widget and allow other webmasters to put your content on their website, a widget has the potential to increase page views, total traffic to your site, and your link popularity. Plus, you could increase the satisfaction of your current visitors by giving them resources that they can use.

Bill Slawski often has unique insights into search engine ranking behavior based on patent filings. I enjoy reading his blog often. Yesterday he wrote about page load time and a Yahoo! patent filing. It’s a very interesting read.

I’ve known for some time that search engines, particularly Google, have looked at page load time when determining where a page should rank in the index. But it’s not as simple as slow load-rank low, fast load-rank high. There are other factors to consider. For instance, if page load time is the only negative that a website registers and it gets high marks or very high marks in everything else then it could still conceivably rank very high for its search terms, even No. 1.

Nevertheless, the search engines do consider load time. Bill brings up several good points though. Among the points that he mentions that I found interesting are:

• Latency
• User experience as a ranking factor
• Why the type of site matters for latency and rendering

Latency is defined as the period of time between when a user clicks link to land on a certain page and when that page loads. Bill is careful to point out that latency is more than a hard number in terms of time metrics. Latency could be affected by the types of information that must load (i.e. straight text, photos, videos, JavaScript or massive external files, etc.) and when those features are programmed to load for that page. Does your page load from top to bottom or does it wait for a browser to access external files before rendering any element on the page? Those are important points to consider.

User experience is another thing. Will users wait around for a certain type of website to load or lose patience? That might matter. Even if a page loads slowly, if a large number of people are willing to wait that extra second or two for the page to load then the search engine may give it a pass on page load time.

Likewise, if the web page is a certain type of website – say a blog – then it might be treated one way in terms of page load while a Web 2.0 membership site may be treated completely different. That’s because it is expected that the membership site based on Web 2.0 technology will have certain features that cause it to loan longer while a blog doesn’t necessarily have to.

I found this a very interesting discussion. While no specifics are mentioned in the Yahoo! patent and Bill doesn’t go into any great detail about them either, it is important to know that how quickly your pages load matter a lot in terms of how you’ll rank for your search terms. Faster is always best.

You’ve likely heard the arguments before. Content vs. SEO.

On the one hand, you need to rank well in the search engines if you want to get traffic to your website. But on the other hand, if you focus too heavily on on site search engine optimization and you don’t write your content for your human site visitors, the people who do show up might end up leaving without making a purchase. Canned content is no fun to read.

The “content is king” crowd argue that content for your human readers is more important. I agree. It really is. But does that mean you shouldn’t optimize your website? And the SEO people put more emphasis on keywords and links.

Personally, I say you can have both. There’s no reason you can’t write great content and get the very best SEO in the process. It takes concentration, good research, and great writing skills. Don’t sacrifice anything!

For years, the popular local search website Citysearch has offered free business listings to anyone with a business who wants to get more local exposure. Now, Matt McGee of Small Business Search Marketing has written a blog post suggesting that Citysearch has done away with free business listings. If so, is that a mistake?

I understand the desire for businesses to want to make more money. Don’t we all? But any business that acts as a directory or resource for others must understand two things about site visitor behavior:

• Users won’t necessarily pay for something unless they can get a good feeling about you and learn to trust you
• Just because you exist doesn’t mean they will visit you

Citysearch has a solid reputation in the local search niche. That’s nothing to sneeze at. But many small businesses still making their first steps into online marketing will want to test the waters of any site before giving them any money. The best way to test a site like Citysearch is with a free listing.

Free listings do two things. First, the build trust among a class of small business owner who needs to move slowly and test drive your offerings before shelling out dollars on them. And secondly, they provide your website with additional content, which is great for search engine listings and more exposure.

The second benefit is yours. Why take it away? I see no clear reason because while it may not translate into direct dollars today it does have value and that value could translate into direct dollars another day. If Citysearch really did kill its free business listings then it could prove to be a blunder on a large scale.

The current news, the top news that everyone is talking about is two-fold.

1. Yahoo! and Microsoft are close to a deal
2. And Google sold its AOL shares

You can see the news for yourself.

But these two little tidbits beg the question, what’s up with the future?

Specifically, here’s what mean. No. 1 first:

Yahoo! and Microsoft
If Yahoo! and Microsoft team up against Google, will it be a rival worth our attention? Google, of course, will still dominate, but Yahoo! and Microsoft together on the same team may actually create a more competitive atmosphere, which I think most of us would welcome. Would that mean more market share for the the underdogs. Will that mean less share for Google? So far, not many people have left Google for Bing, but what if Yahoo! and Microsoft really hook up? Will that be a game changer?

Can AOL Survive?
The second question involves something much more bleak. And I don’t mean a financial loss for Google. That’s just a dent in Abrams tank armor. But what about AOL? Will the Internet icon survive?

When AOL rose to prominence there was very little competition and they aggressively marketed their product nationwide. A lot of people bought into the free 30 days Internet service, which later turned into 60 days then 90 days. But there are a lot more ISPs now and more and more people are leaving AOL. They’re not so preppie any more. Should they be worried for their life? Will AOL falter without Google. How long can they stand on their own?

What Do You Think?
What do you have to say – either about AOL or Yahoo!-Microsoft? Who is going to win? Who will lose?

Darren Rowse of Problogger fame sent out this tweet this morning:

for the record – I don’t exchange links with anyone. I link to sites I think are useful to my readers and let link building look after itself

That might work well for Darren, but what about the rest of us? Can we rely on link building to take care of itself?

Naturally, natural link building for search engine optimization is preferable to trying to force a square peg into a round hole, but is it feasible to expect that thousands of other bloggers and website owners will link to you if you don’t have a name brand like Problogger? Sure, name brands are cool and if you’ve got one that is popular then you’ll get linked to, no doubt. But how many of us can boast that it has actually happened

You can go for the huge name brand if you want. There is nothing wrong with that strategy. But how do you get there? At some point you’ll need to decide to promote yourself using links and other forms of online media. Rarely does it just take care of itself. And link building has become such an important part of building a web business that leaving it to itself is not an option for most of us. If anything, we still need to blog and write articles to get some inbound links going. After all, you’re not Darren Rowse.

Search engine optimization has a bad rep. Tell a group of people at a party what you do and one of them will no doubt accuse you of being a spammer. But there is a distinct difference between search engine optimization and spam. If the critics are correct then all of us are spammers. But I’m not willing to concede that just because you want your website to rank well in the search engines that you must be a spammer.

Rather, I think smart business people, whether they are entrepreneurs looking for search engine optimization services or search engine optimization specialists trying to rank their empire of websites, will do everything they can to rank their websites well for the keywords they are targeting. It’s just smart business. Provided, of course, that you go about it in ways that won’t get you banned from the search engines. Or sued. Or worse.

It is difficult, really, to come up with a good definition of search engine spam. E-mail spam we know about. Search engine spam is different. Because it assumes that there are people who don’t want to see your message. But there may actually be people who do want to see your message. And if they clicked on your listing in the search engine, that proves it. Right?

Well, not always. I mean, they could have been deceived by the snippet or the Title tag. Maybe that’s why my industry has such a bad reputation.

When it comes to search engine optimization, it’s more than a story of good guys vs. bad guys.There’s also the story of competent and incompetent, honest and dishonest. SEO itself is a neutral, neither good nor bad, neither ethical nor unethical. It is the person using the tool that makes it good or bad. Sometimes, the question you ask has a different answer if you rephrase it. “Are you a spammer?” could just as well be, “Is your site well optimized using search engine approved tactics?”

To some, there may not be a difference. To me, there is.