I spend time each day reading other search engine optimization posts via email, RSS and through links sent to me. Today I noticed three separate posts on the same topic, using more than one link to a single page using different anchor texts.

They all reached the same conclusions - search engines, particularly Google, on read the first link on a page. One article even tried to no follow the link to see what would happen. Same result, the first link and the anchor text used was the one indexed. Writing about search engine optimization as frequently as we do, it struck me I read this before.

Nothing strange there, we all try things out and report on the results. Checking back through some of our older posts I came across three different posts where I mentioned this outcome. Search engine optimization tells us that internal linking is important, particularly if it is relevant. If your interested I suggest you look at the post on how much anchor text is enough?

To go over some of the ground covered by that post. Search engines hate spam. If you are going to link to an internal page, you only need to do it once. The search engine then understands that the two pages are relevant to each other. If your search engine optimization is up to scratch, a quick comparison between the two pages should confirm it - similar keywords, similar text - not a copy of course - but closely related.

For this reason the link need to be optimized to perfection using keywords that matter. It is also why you will read in some posts why I dislike open links to internal pages through menus or sidebars unless you can guarantee they will be read last by the search engines. On page search engine optimization should only carry one link to any page from another page. If you have two, even if one is in a menu or sidebar, nofollow it. Make sure the link flow is from within the content, not the sidebar.

This is one area that always seems to generate discussions or arguments. A simple philosophy is to use the ‘harm’ principle. Will this action ‘harm’ my search engine optimization program. If having more than one link has the potential to reduce the effect of the most important link - take action. If your action is not going to do any harm in itself - all the more reason to do it.

Using nofollow as part of your search engine optimization strategy wont cause any harm. Having too many links from page A to page B may - sometimes you cannot remove them - so control them.

Search engine optimization relies heavily on keywords and in the past the Google Keyword Tool has only displayed a small bar graph to indicate keyword popularity. That has now changed.

Google’s Keyword Tool now includes volume data including monthly and average search volume data. This can be particularly useful when trying to identify suitable keywords for your search engine optimization program.

The above image displays the keyword search results including volume data. There are a lot keyword tools available and this is just another one. However if you are undertaking and ad campaign through Google then it can make the process a little easier. You can build your targeted keyword list as you search.

Search engine optimization can sometimes become a little crowded with the tools available. However if you are already using the Google Keyword Tool then you will find the additional information handy.

Everything and anything can be found online, this includes your business. The difficult part is making your web pages visible to potential customers who are searching for businesses like yours. That’s where Search Engine Optimization or SEO comes in.

Search Engine Optimization is the number one to online marketing success. Whilst many consider it expensive, it is really the least expensive and most beneficial marketing tool available to web masters.

Consider these benefits and compare them with any other form of marketing:

Search Engines Don’t Sleep
24 hour advertising, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year. If your search engine optimization is spot on your will be near the top of the search results. Whilst ever you pages are available, they are advertising your business. Potential customers can find you anytime, and from anywhere in the world.

Constant Traffic
A top 10 page rank will increase traffic, which will lead to increased revenue and sales. If you have a eCommerce site, you can be making sales even whilst asleep. Use effective search engine optimization techniques to get into that top ten listing.

Relevant and qualified leads
Potential customers are searching for services or products such as your. If you don’t appear in the top ten then you are losing business. Searchers who do find you have found you based on their search terms and the keywords you have used in your search engine optimization program. Chances are you are going to be providing what they want - free qualified customers.

Minimal ongoing costs
Once you spend the money to reach your search engine optimization goals, maintaining your top 10 status costs very little. With effective ongoing search engine optimization maintenance, you can remain in the top ten of the search results for many years.

Out performing your competitors
The higher your search results ranking, the more important your business becomes to the online world. Your competitors become the chasers, constantly trying to catch and pass you. Because of your position, searchers will consider your business to have the better reputation.

This is just a handful of the benefits of search engine optimization. As you can see, these benefits are all related to marketing and marketing outcomes. Whilst marketing is a constant never ending and expensive challenge, the cost of search engine optimization is really quite low in comparison.

The best way to find out if search engine optimization can benefit your business is by getting a quote on affordable search engine optimization from a reliable consultant.

As a website owner, or blog owner for that matter, you put a lot of work into the design, creating good content, and undertake a good search engine optimization program. The results, a well ranked site that sits fairly high in the search results for your keywords.

There are a lot of sites that meet that scenario. The search engine optimization techniques are spot on and they are receiving a steady flow of visitors through organic search results. You know your content is well written around your keywords yet your bounce rate - or short stay rate - is very high.

In fact rumor has it you may be reducing your ranking. If visitors land on your page, don’t see what they want and hit the back button, Google at least may well reduce the ranking of your site for that search term undoing all your good search engine optimization work.

There are many design issues that can cause a high bounce rate, however even well designed sited can suffer the same effects. Search engine optimization can get the visitor onto your site, what happens from there is up to you.

Part of your search engine optimization program should be a well thought plan for how your visitor navigates your site. One of these navigation tools is a simple on site search. We live in a world of instant gratification. I may wind up on your site, the content is close to what I am looking for. I have a choice, I can hit the back button and look at the next entry in the results, or can refine my search on your site. You need to make that option clearly available - and inviting.

If you look around many of the sites with search tools, that is all they are - often Google search bars at that. Simple text such as: “Refine Your Search”, or similar that invite the visitor to look a little closer at what you do have on offer. If your page structure is well laid out through effective search engine optimization, it will also produce good on site search results.

Don’t look at your on site search as just another function. Search engine optimization will bring the traffic in, on site search optimization may help those visitors access more of your content rather than disappearing off site.

If there is one on page search engine optimization strategy that should be used, it is the use of headings. In particular, placing your most important keywords, for that page, into headings.

This starts with the page heading or title. This should highlight the main keyword(s) for that page. Your content should then evolve around that keyword. Search engine optimization is all about bringing that particular keyword or phrase to the attention of the search engines.

If your content is going to run into more than three or four paragraphs then you can justify breaking it up into sections with each section having a sub-heading. The main heading may use the H1 tag while your sub-heading could be using the H2 tags. Good search engine optimization techniques would suggest working with the site designer to provide specific CSS heading tags for the content of your pages.

By placing your keywords into H1 and H2 tags you are making them stand out to the search engines. Evidence of this can sometimes be seen by the bolding of that keyword in the search results. On page search engine optimization needs to make use of every resource possible to enhance your keywords.

If H1 or H2 tags are not suited to your pages overall look, test the H3 and H4 tags. If they fail then using commands such as ‘big’ and ’strong’ can have a similar affect although not treated with quite the same importance by search engines. Never the less they do make these keywords stand out - and that is the aim of your search engine optimization program - at least, it should be.

Search engine optimization is probably about 15 years old depending on who you talk too. It is certainly more than ten years old if you consider the professional side of the business.

In the beginning it was simple task of ‘keyword stuffing’ pages. Getting to the top of search results was fairly easy for two reasons; first there was simply the lack of competition; second was the straightforward process of on page optimization - keyword stuffing essentially. Search engine optimization was quick and dirty.

We have come along way since then. Google has driven the business to a large extent and their method of ranking sites based on ‘authority’ has been replicated by other search engines. With the advent of link exchanges, link farms and purchased links, this method of ranking site is becoming less reliable. Given the amount of competition and the serious search engine optimization work for high ranking places, there is going to be a need for change at some time in the future.

Users, that is, the people undertaking searches will eventually be the driving force. The question that we, as search engine optimization specialist need to ask is, ‘how will search engines provide relevant search results into the future’?

Google is already playing with at least one concept - the page load times, when it comes to advertisers. I believe they may well be tweaking search results based on the actions of those that undertake a search. If a lot of searches hit the back button after clicking on a search result, this may well indicate a lack of relevance for that term and see the rankings for that site and term reduced. Search engine optimization will need to ensure that pages and keywords do have a high relevance to users.

Page load times have always been an issue. Whether that data can be used to rank a site is unclear - particularly when there are so many other variables at stake such as server issues.

Finding a ranking system that is fair will never happen. I have yet to see any system that can reliably measure traffic. Even Google’s own analytic program misses a lot of traffic. At present we are stuck with a mix of on and off page search engine optimization strategies that pays little regard to user habits.

The real future of search engine optimization will be in trying to determine how the search engines will use visitor statistics to determine a sites relevance in the bigger picture. With the internet growing so quickly each day, the opportunities for getting high rankings is becoming more difficult. The future is going to be interesting.

I was asked late last week if it was possible to speed up the search engine optimization program to get a better ranking quickly. Now by quickly, they were talking about days, not weeks or months. They even pointed to some of the ‘get to number one in seven days’ type ads that are around at present.

It leads me to a general observation that everyone on the internet wants everything to happen quickly, and by quickly I mean like yesterday - tomorrow is too late. Search engine optimization is not like that. You have effects tomorrow, next week, next month and in two years time. To make matters worse we have no way of predicting what those results may be.

We can work intensely on a web site with 100 plus pages and get a good proportion of those pages onto the top ten in the search results. However, the competition is working hard on their search engine optimization program to try to get the same placement - and the competition may run into hundred’s of web sites. We cannot all be on page one of the search results.

Whilst search engines provide the majority of free traffic, and will continue to do so for a while, search engine optimization will be a constant review, reassess and modify game. You can obtain short term results but not quite as spectacular as some people would like.

Search engine optimization is like a long distance marathon - the only difference is that in a marathon you know where the finish is. With search engine optimization, they keep moving the finish line.

If you utilize a lot of images on your site and you feel that having those images indexed by the search engines then you could consider creating an image sitemap as part of your search engine optimization strategy.

As far as sitemaps go, this is not your standard official search engine sitemap. In fact once completed you cannot ’submit’ this sitemap as you would a normal sitemap. However, once spidered, it may well help to get your images indexed just that little bit quicker. More importantly, as search engines like Google don’t necessarily index all images from a site, an image sitemap may help to get more of your images indexed. As a search engine optimization strategy, it is certainly not going to hurt your site.

An image sitemap is more like a traditional sitemap that are created for visitors rather than search engines. To create a sitemap:

• Set up a dedicated page called Image Sitemap.
• Create a sorted list of all your images - sort them by what is most appropriate - alphabetical, by product, or any other set of categories.
• Ensure that all the images you want indexed are in the sitemap, each with links leading to the image itself.
• Treat the page as any other page when it comes to search engine optimization.
• Create links on each page to the sitemap - particularly your homepage.

If you only have a few images then create a small ’sitemap’ in a sidebar or at the bottom of your home page. The higher up the page the more likely it is to be read quickly. When it comes to search engine optimization, every little extra helps. An image sitemap is just another set of internal links - however, by placing them together on the one page as a form of index may just convince the search engine spider of their importance. It doesn’t hurt to try.

There are times when an individuals search engine optimization techniques actually end up doing more damage than good, to the point that search engines like Google remove the site from the index altogether. When this happens, what can you do?

Identifying the problem:
If you feel your web site may be in difficulties your first step should be to do a search on your websites URL. Even the most search engine optimization program will see your URL returned in the search results fairly quickly. Enter the URL in inverted commas, “yourwebsite.com”. If the results show not found when it has been found in the past, you know your site has been removed.

Find out why:
The Google WebmasterCentral Blog has a good step by step guide. If you have Google Analytics activated, go to your Webmaster Tools center and check for any problems. You can also check the Message Center to see if there are any messages.

If everything appears ok, check your own activities, have you used any search engine optimization techniques that may be considered black or, at worst, grey. If so, reverse them.

Advise Google:
Once you rectified any problems, you can go to your Webmaster Tools and send a “Request reconsideration” notice. Follow the prompts and submit to Google. You need to ensure your search engine optimization activities are in compliance with Google’s policies, otherwise they will instantly reject your request.

Don’t hold your breath. It can take several weeks, sometimes longer, before they look at your site and restore it. While waiting, continue your normal activities including your search engine optimization program. Once your site is restored, try to avoid future problems by following effective search engine optimization techniques that fall within the guidelines of all the search engines.

Marketing Pilgrim’s post on Long Tail keywords being short on proof reports on a Wall Street Journal article on the same topic. The article’s author, Anita Elberse a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, questions whether or not long tail search will stand the test of time. From a search engine optimization perspective, the question is whether or not we can afford to ignore them.

When looking for keywords and phrases that searches are likely to use to find our pages, search engine optimization takes every possible angle for each related keyword. If long tail is going to be effective, we need to be prepared. It is often too late to, down the track, suddenly go back and try to optimize for missed key phrases. Acting from day one puts the page there ready for any search terms when they occur.

As the article on Marketing Pilgrim states:

Just because they have been more defined in their search (3, 4, 5 word phrases rather than one word generalities) doesn’t mean they aren’t one of the masses. It just means they are further along in the buying cycle, which means they are closer to the time of purchase this making them most valuable to a lot of marketers.

You may not gain a mass of traffic from a long tail, but as stated in the excerpt, the traffic you do get may be closer to spending their money - this equates to much higher conversions so search engine optimization of these keywords and phrases is still important.

What is often forgotten in discussions such as this is the one simple fact: If it isn’t going to hurt the page, go ahead - if it delivers one more sale then your in front. Search engine optimization is not just about attracting the masses - it is directed towards getting every visitor possible, even if they come in trickles - many trickles still cause floods.

Google have never really openly endorsed search engine optimization consultants - until today that is. The Google Webmaster Help Center finally has an advice piece on how to hire a consultant - a change from their previous stance of simply warning against ‘black hat’ SEO operators.

Google’s advice is fairly reasonable too and includes:

Before beginning your search for an SEO, it’s a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work.

They include a short description on what a search engine optimization consultant does although there is no ‘how they go about’ description. They also advise to read Google’s own material first as organic search results provide free traffic. What I did find interesting was the following admission:

If you’re thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you’re considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.

So hiring your search engine optimization consultant right from day one could now be considered a Google ‘recommendation’. Google also provides a list of questions to ask any proposed consultant.

The former warnings about black hat search engine optimization techniques is still there but at the bottom of the advisory. So there you have it - Google’s advice on hiring a search engine optimization consultant.

There is an interesting discussion on the search engine optimization forum at WebProWorld around the topic of NoFollow-DoFollow.

The comments are varied although there are a few common points. The most common being the use of NoFollow for paid links. Little of the conversation actually relates to search engine optimization.

Some of the conversation goes to extreme, however it should be remembered the NoFollow is, generally speaking, a harmless tool. The worst you can do is tell a search engine not to follow a link when perhaps it should have been followed - a poor use of the tag when it comes to search engine optimization strategies.

The robots.txt file was mentioned at couple times, however there are still times when the NoFollow tag should be used. On page links to areas such as your About page should be NoFollowed.

I generally like to NoFollow duplicate links on the same page so that I only have the one link being followed. Does it affect link juice - the jury still seems to be out on that score. However when it comes to search engine optimization, it is easier to keep track of links that are followed or nofollowed when they are in common areas.

Search engine optimization relies on a variety of tools that include tags, robots.txt files and other on page issues. The bottom line is that they generally wont harm your search rankings so judicious use of these tags is in the hands of the users.

When launching a website these days you have so many factors that need to be explored. Design, usability, search and the list keeps going. Sooner or later you might want to sell something on your website. Now the fun begins.

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We have written many articles that either allude to, or come right out and say that your web design should avoid flash scripts wherever possible. It simply wasn’t good for search engine optimization. We have also written on several occasions about how quickly things can change when it comes to search engines and optimizing your pages.

Google have gone and done it again. Changed all the rules, and this time not for the better. Call me old fashioned, however there is nothing like a good clean HTML structure to your web pages. They are easy to edit and easy to modify when it comes to search engine optimization.

Andy Beal has reported on Google’s latest announcement relating to their ability to now spider Flash files and index the text content found. This includes any links but at this time not graphics or images.

Thanks to Adobe’s new Searchable SWF library, Google has announced a new indexing algorithm that is able to crawl and index the content of Flash files.

Andy seems to agree that this is not necessarily a step in the right direction by Google. Andy makes three very good points in his summary:

1. Until Google can demonstrate that its Flash crawling capabilities are equal to its HTML crawling, you risk building a site that, while indexable, is not as “optimized” as its simple HTML cousin.
2. If your Flash site is nothing but cool imagery and little else, you still won’t rank for much.
3. If you build Flash web sites just because you have the skilz–and not because it’s a better user-experience–I will not rest until I hunt you down!

As for the other search engines, there is no word on whether or not they will follow suit. You can be sure that somewhere along the way they will join the party. As for search engine optimization strategies, it is back to the drawing board.

Anyone who is using Flash in their web pages will need to ensure that the content that can be read is accurate, that links are not dead, and that keywords use is optimized. Search engine optimization surely is a never ending game.

As a search engine optimization expert we are frequently asked to get a site to number one in Google. Number one for what - your site? Getting a site name to number one can often be an easy task. Give me a week and it’s done. But is that what you really want? I think not!

When looking to get to ‘number one in Google’ you need to have some idea as to why you want that number one position for. From there we can start to determine what keywords would be most appropriate for your website given a solid search engine optimization program.

I wouldn’t say I was a fan of Google’s, however they are the number one search engine at present so a lot of my time is spent ensuring that my search engine optimization strategies helps to get that high listing on Google’s search results pages.

The one thing I don’t do is worship them. I certainly don’t spend my waking hours worrying about what Google may do with my pages. What I do concentrate my efforts on is creating great well formed web pages. No one should pander to what they think Google likes and doesn’t like - the reality is that is considered good search engine optimization strategies today may be completely different tomorrow.

With this in mind I also try to get sites listed in high positions in the results for other search engines. Whilst Google may have as much as 70% of all searches, that still leaves 30% that requires some sort of effort.

Don’t ask a search engine optimization consultant to get you to number one on Google. Rather, ask them get you most visitors possible from all the search engines. Now we can work together with a common understood goal.