The Relative Value Of SEO Principles
Search Engine Optimization experts disagree. A lot. Kind of like radio commentators during election season. And that's why you'll often find conflicting advice or contradictory statements from one search engine optimization blog to the next. The interesting thing is every Search Engine Optimization professional thinks he's right and the other guy is wrong. Could it be that maybe every Search Engine Optimization pro is right? In a relative sense, Search Engine Optimization is not necessarily about what is true or factual, but about what is effective. If it works for me then I believe it's true. Someone else could disagree and still be just as right. For instance, some Search Engine Optimization gurus will tell you that having your keyword in your domain name isn't necessary. To CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Search Engine Optimization Basics In – What?
I like Kalena Jordan. I like Jill Whalen. But a recent article in SiteProNews written by the former about the latter has me a little confused. You have to read carefully what people say in these articles. Jordan is explaining some advice that Whalen gave in a conference tutorial and starts off with some common "Search Engine Optimization Myths." To be sure, most of them are myths. But you have to pay attention to some of the wording on these myths: you must have a keyword-rich domain you must have keyword-rich page URLs heading tags are necessary (H1, H2 etc.) First off, I don't know anyone who says a keyword-rich domain is necessary. Obviously, it isn't necessary. How many websites with whacked out domain names are CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are All The Good Domain Names Taken?
Search engine optimization experts will tell you to pick your domain name based on your keyword research, but that's getting more and more and difficult. You can do your research and identify 15 of your top keywords and when you go looking for that domain name you like so much - it's taken. And that one's taken too. Then the other one ... yep, it's taken. Darn, aren't there any good ones left? Some Web 2.0 converts are starting to follow the Flickr formula, which is to drop a vowel or misspell the keyword slightly. It boils down to acquiring a phonetic domain name, or "near misses." Instead of Mechanics.com, you might see Mechanix.com or MyKanics.com, because we're cute. But do such domain names work? They can, CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Instead Of Video Spam, Try Video Product Placement
Two days ago I posted two suggestions for improving Google Universal. Thanks to Sebastian Lewis for bringing up the video search issue. I had pointed out that Image Search has issues. Video search actually has some of the same issues. I was delighted to an interview with video search engine optimization expert Jeremy Clem in today's issue of Search Marketing Standard. One of the interesting things Clem said in the interview had to do with motivation for producing and posting videos online: You need to first understand if video content is advantageous for reaching and resonating with the client’s target audiences.” says Jeremy. If you’re doing video SEO for the purpose of just showing up in the video search results, that’s not reason enough yet. But CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
How To Create A 301 Redirect To A New Page URL
If you redesign a web page and change its URL, you'll need to perform a 301 redirect so that you don't lose any search engine rankings. To do that you need to access or .htaccess file or create one. If you use a CMS, this may pose a challenge for you. If possible, contact the company that manufactured your CMS and ask them if they can help you with a 301 redirect. If you can make an .htaccess file then you can make sure traffic to your old page URL is transferred to the new page URL with no issues. To create a new .htaccess file, you'll need to open Notepad and save it as a blank page with the name .htaccess. Make sure nothing follows CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Video Search Engine Optimization: What Does The Future Hold For Video?
(Kelsey Group) So what are these search engine optimization tactics? One example some clever SMBs (and search engine marketers) have started to use is to have the video on their Web sites linked to the same video that has been uploaded to YouTube. When Google sees that the copy and tags surrounding the video are the same as the corresponding video on YouTube, it will rank the video highly as part of its general favorability of YouTube content. Clever. Brilliant post on The Kelsey Group blog. I was just thinking myself earlier today about new ways to optimize video for the coming search explosion. If you're not up on it yet, the search engines are gearing up for the expansion and growth of video CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Scannable SEO: Are Your Web Pages Readable?
People don't read online. They scan. Sometimes gravitate. I swear, one time I think I saw a searcher float, but she was drinking. OK, all jokes aside, people don't read your web pages. They either scan them - if they're scannable, or leave. Only some of your scanners will actually stop and read something if its piques their interest. Otherwise, they scan and move on. So how do you gather their interest? Well, first, you have to attract them to your page - either through a well optimized pay per click campaign or a well optimized organic search listing. Let's assume organic for a moment. You first need to make sure that your page title is optimized and says exactly what you need it to say to get CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEO Content Is A Sales Tool So Use It
I read so much that I forgot exactly where I read this this morning, but I did read somewhere that technical SEO was going to die. SEO of the future, the bloggers point was, is going to include marketing tactics and strategies. I would argue that it already does. This morning's SEOJ post discussed this in part. Many new SEOs focus a great deal on keyword writing and links. What they fail to see is that SEO also incorporates a certain level of selling. Your website must sell. If it doesn't then you are wasting your efforts. Here are some helpful tips to ensure that the website copy, the SEO, does more than just filter keywords onto your page, but actually does something on the CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEOs Are Marketers Too
Does your SEO know how to sell? Can he put together a marketing plan for your website? These are skills that more and more SEOs will have to learn in order to be more competitive. Soon, SEOs who know how to SEO a web page, but they don't know how to use that web page to sell a product, will fall out of fashion. In essence, your website is a sales brochure. Either it converts traffic into money for you, or it's useless. SEO is fine and dandy. Yes, you should write your content so that you rank well for your key terms, but does it make much of a difference if you get tons of traffic and no sales? It should. Unless your website is an CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
How To Increase Search Engine Saturation
WebProNews suggests 10 ways to increase your search engine saturation. Actually, they called it Number of Pages Indexed. Whatever you call it, there is hope. Here's the list: PageRank Links Sitemap Speed Google's Crawl Caching Proxy Verify Content, Content, Content Staggard Launch Size Matters Know How Your Site Is Found, And Tell Google PageRank From WebProNews: It depends a lot on PageRank. The higher your PageRank the more pages that will be indexed. PageRank isn't a blanket number for all your pages. Each page has its own PageRank. A high PageRank gives the Googlebot more of a reason to return. Matt Cutts confirms, too, that a higher PageRank means a deeper crawl. I concur. This is proof that persistence pays off. New webmasters often wonder how to increase their PageRank. Well, it doesn't happen overnight. You've got to CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Using AdSense To SEO Your Website
Most webmasters don't think about AdSense as an SEO tool, but it can be. Once you've established your website's keyword focus and you've built enough pages to run your test, place a test ad or two on a couple of pages and let them sit for a week. Go back and take a look at your ads at various times of the day to see if they "match up" with your website's content. If they don't then it could be that you are not using the right keywords for your website. To make this work, you have to sign up for AdSense and set it up for the right keywords. Make sure that your are AdSense ads target the right keywords because if they don't CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
SEO: All That And A Bag Of Chips?
It seems that everyone is becoming an SEO expert these days. Go online, read an e-book, and you can be an expert. So the mindset seems to be. I hate to bust bubbles (actually, I quite like it :-) ), but it does take some time to get proficient in search engine optimization. There's no magic pill. No secret formula. No cool little trick or secret handshake. Almost anyone can do it. I say "almost," because you do need the time to read up on the subject and perform your own experiments. Can you succeed online if you are not an Aaron Wall or Danny Sullivan? Of course. Lots of people have done well online. And many more will continue to do well. But doing well CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Web 3.0? Hold On, Wait A Minute, Slow Down …
The new buzzword now is Web 3.0. There's actually a definition for it. Well, there's more than one, it appears. But I'm just getting used to Web 2.0. And haven't quite figured out what that is, to be honest. Can't we meet in the middle and just work on Web. 2.5 before moving on? I prefer the concept of Semantic Web over anything else. Latent semantic indexing is a kind of analysis that allows computers (ie. search engine robots) the ability to analyze information, words and such, to determine their meaning within context. The concept essentially means that keywords are not as important as we make them out to be. Currently, search engine optimization relies almost completely upon keyword management. But Google has CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Gene Marks Is Back And Better Than Ever
Gene Marks wrote an article in BusinessWeek that drew the ire of every SEO and Internet marketer in the business. All you had to do was Google his name and you'd see the backlash. Even my post about him hit Page 1 on Google. Interestingly, there's at least one person agreeing with him and search marketer Jaan Kanellis is taking issue with that defender on yesterday's WebProNews. I'll have to agree with Jaan Kanellis again. The only reason Gene Marks wrote the article that he did was to get link bait. Either that or the man is a total and complete idiot. I CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
What To Do If Your Search Rankings Fall
It happens to the best of us sooner or later. You'll fall in search engine rankings for no apparent reason. You've been to the top of the SERPs then all of a sudden you drop, and you don't know why. There could be any number of reasons why. The first thing you should do is make a list of the things that have been done to your site in the last month. By making such a list you can easily identify any problem areas. Here are some recommendations on some of the most common webmaster problems that have causes search rankings to fall - and what you can do about it if it happens to you: If you've recently changed hosting providers then you might have CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
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Nick Stamoulis:
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