Search Engine Optimisation - Everything you should know

“How To Multiply Your Search Engine Rankings, Achieve Them Up To 85% Faster, And Increase The Traffic, Sales & Profitability Of Your Online Business”

Overview

Search engine optimization (SEO) has gained credibility and is now vitally important in a company’s effort to conduct business online, to build traffic and increase revenues.

SEO is also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Positioning (SEP) and various other titles. SEO is a service that “optimizes” or prepares your web site in order for it to be spidered, indexed and ranked by major search engines. Over 400 million searches are performed EVERY DAY on the various engines, and business owners today are seeing that they need to take a piece of that action and be prominently listed to be found by the potential customers performing these searches. Not being ranked prominently literally means giving business to your competitors that are ranked!

The following report is designed to share information with you about the service, techniques used and questions you must ask any SEO company before working with them. Becoming an educated consumer will help you make the best possible SEO decisions.

SEO services have many wonderful benefits, and a long term commitment to a correct SEO campaign, done properly with targeted keywords and ethical techniques can produce great returns on your investment.

SEO Firms

There are hundreds of SEO firms out there today, all varying in skill level as well as experience. Our goal is to help you learn what is important in an SEO company and to know what questions to ask to compare services and benefits to you.

There are SEO companies that focus only on SEO, and some say that targeted focus will deliver the most benefit to you. We respectfully disagree with that opinion and feel that your best bet is with a SEO company that can look at your big picture and help in other important areas, such as web design and maintenance, other marketing techniques and technical help. True, the company must have experience in all areas and should be able to provide references, case studies and samples of their work to earn your trust and respect. The main fact to remember here is just because other people in the company have the ability to help you in other areas, does not mean that your SEO consultant will be any less focused on their task at hand. A company that has staff experienced in other areas can only maximize your potential online and also work with you on various other projects.

A lot of SEO companies have a cookie cutter method, and don't supply you with hands on support and customer service. We feel if you are going to entrust a company with that type of investment, they must be available to answer questions, and give you personalized service.

Be very wary of companies that promise results that seem too good to be true, they usually are. Companies that assure you they can gain numerous top 5 or top 10 rankings within days are most likely using less than ethical techniques that can actually harm your site and result in you being banned from the engines in the future. It is realistic to expect numerous top 20 rankings within a period of a few weeks to 4 months (depending on past ranking history, site SEO readiness and various other factors).

Be sure to ask any SEO company what methods and techniques they use to achieve your rankings, and when you can expect to receive them by. Read further to see an overview of acceptable techniques.

Software

You will encounter many automated software services that will claim to submit you to thousands of engines and gain you so many rankings, this has become a popular and confusing trend – as companies see the opportunity to automate the process and gain profit for little work. These software packages appear attractive, due to their ease of use and low cost. The old saying, you get what you pay for is true once again. Without the proper education and understanding of the SEO process, you are limiting your success – you need to know what criteria the engines have in place to ensure your site’s SEO readiness, you need to know when to submit and how often to submit (and this varies from engine to engine). Over submitting can harm you and under submitting does not really benefit you. Also submitting a site that does not meet their basic criteria, will not gain you the rankings you are looking for. With that being said, I'm sure you can see that the investment in the software or automated service actually didn't benefit you and could potentially jeopardize your ability to be ranked in the future.

Paid Inclusion

Paid inclusion refers to fee based listings in engines and directories, such as: Yahoo!, LookSmart, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista, Lycos, Inktomi and FAST. Fees range from a per URL cost of $20-$30 for each page of your site you want included to an annual fee of $300 for a directory listing in Yahoo!

When looking into paid inclusion programs, you'll always want to know some of the recent history with the search engine or directory. Be careful not to put yourself in a situation where you are liable for higher fees than you agreed to, or where you can be automatically transferred to a PPC model. It is best if your SEO Company will handle these paid inclusions for you. You are often still responsible for the fees, but your SEO Company should handle the submission process for you.

Service Components

SEO services have evolved into a complex process that involves staying aware daily of the changes in the engines and their criteria and utilizing many optimization techniques to ensure the best possible rankings.

Aside from optimizations, it is important to have the basic key elements of your site meet the engines criteria – essentially ensuring that your site is “SEO ready” or “SEO friendly.”

If you take 2 sites – one SEO friendly and one not, optimize them both identically and submit them at the same time – you will see better rankings faster on the site that is SEO friendly. The engines require that your site be valid from a SEO friendliness perspective and reward with higher rankings for compliance with their criteria. Criteria is subject to change and an effective SEO Company will stay informed daily about the most current information.

Current criteria is as follows; your copy should be high in keyword rich text, and there should be at least 5 pages (Content Is King – relevant keyword rich text is their most important criteria), your site should be static and not have dynamically delivered content that the engines can't read, header tags and ALT tags also draw spiders attention to your site, Flash and over usage of graphics also pose a problem for the engines, sites in frames can often not be read, as well as various other criteria.

Keywords

Keyword research is the first and most vital step in the SEO process. Keywords are the foundation for your campaign and can make or break it.

You will want a company that is thorough in it’s research, a company that asks your input, researches your competitors and gives you final approval on their recommended list.

It cannot be emphasized enough that TARGETED keywords are the only way to go. Your keywords must be relevant to your content and should attract the kind of traffic you can actually convert into customers. Let this example illustrate for you the benefit in targeted keywords.

If you sell diesel, and you select the following keywords: diesel, cars, (name of specific) ________ diesel, and maintenance – what would you expect from those keywords? People often think that (in this example) the keywords cars and maintenance are a big coop. Think of all that traffic. Now let’s look at this way, what good is traffic if it isn't targeted? Sure you may catch the attention of a few people that accidentally wander onto your site – but what are the chances that someone who types cars into an engine are actually looking to purchase diesel. Can you see that you have essentially wasted a keyword here? Whereas, if you select (name of specific)_________ diesel as a keyword – can you see where, yes you may get less traffic but that traffic would actually be looking for exactly what you offer – therefore that traffic is automatically more valuable to you.

The point of our little tangent is simply that the keywords you select are key (no pun intended) and the proper energy, time and experience needs to be used to select these words.

Body Text

Body text is THE key component in the your SEO strategy. Your text MUST include the keywords and phrases that tell about your business, its products and services. Be sure your SEO Company will analyze your body text for keyword ratio and relevancy. Without this very important correct ratio of keyword rich text, you will not see the results you are hoping for and could be achieving, no matter how talented the SEO Company is.

Title Tags

The title tag is one of the most important components of SEO since it is given great consideration by all the search engines. The title is also important because it is usually the hyper linked sentence that leads to the site from the search engine results pages and users must be enticed to click on it. It is crucial to include your company’s top key terms within the title tag.

Hidden Text

Hidden text is another spamming technique that is easily detectable. Often people change the font color to the same as the background, and then SEO companies can fill the pages with enormous amounts of key term text that some believe is appealing to the search engine spiders. This will result in you being banned from the engines – do not allow your SEO company to employ this method.

Cloaking

Cloaking is a spamming technique that uses specific software programs to send search engine spiders to alternative pages that are not seen by the user. These pages mislead the spider, allowing it to deliver the results based on these pages rather than the actual pages the public sees on the site. Spamming/cloaking is a very serious offense in the eyes of the engines, and usually results in your site being permanently banned.

Site Maps

Site Maps are highly effective when created properly. They are a keyword rich static page that lists all the pages and topics on your site, with links for your visitors and the engines to follow through out your site.

Promotional Domains

Promotional domains are used as a secondary, yet integrated domain location for the engines to visit and rank. If the primary domain is not SEO friendly, or the owner does not want the original site altered, this is an effective technique. You must ensure that you own the new site and optimizations and that they reside on your server.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are the descriptive terms used within the HTML code of a web page. Your meta tags act as a summary of the content a search engine spider might find on that page and were once one of the main factors behind great placements. Current algorithmic studies have shown that the meta tag is no longer such an important part of your optimizations. Although most engines don't use meta tags in their ranking algorithms, they do display them in the results which can help with getting people to click onto your site. Overall, the engines are unpredictable and criteria changes, so keeping the meta tags strong, relevant and descriptive of your content is too important to forego.

Reporting

Ensure that you are receiving a detailed and easy to read and understand report from your SEO Company at least once a month so you may track results.

Submission

Your submissions to the top engines should be done manually and based on each engines time frame. This is very important.

Conclusion

There are many SEO companies, and techniques that should and shouldn't be used. Stay informed, ask questions and be involved in your campaign. Best wishes for your success online!

...........LD Sharma

“How To Exploit The Google Dance And Increase Rankings, Sales and Profitability For Your Online Businesses”

Last year, without warning, Google recently dropped thousands of websites from its listings, while countless others saw a severe drop in their page rank. Industry leaders are calling it a "blackout." Earlier in 2003, Google made a significant change to its algorithms, which is not uncommon, but the most recent changes (in mid-November) are severely impacting online businesses.

The Internet has long been touted the information highway, but so far the information has been lacking reliability and consistency. Search engine giants like Google are constantly improving their relevancy methods ... and those changes are affecting rankings in a big way.

Search engines today are concentrating harder than ever on the quality of website content. Just like you and me, site visitors want to see useful, easy-to-read and up-to-date information.

A recent study showed that 1 in 7 websites have a significant number of broken links, spelling and grammar errors, and outdated content. Moreover, Google continues to weed out the "spammers" that include hidden text and over-stuffed HTML tags. It's just not the level of quality that surfers are demanding of websites.

Follow a few simple rules to achieve top rankings:

Keyword Research

Use competitive customer analysis to identify the best keyword phrasesfor your business. Unfortunately, there is a widespread misconceptionthat you need highly competitive keyword phrases that get the mosttraffic, but this could not be farther from the truth.

Simply trying to get top search engine placement based upon "quantity"(in other words, those keyword phrases being searched on most) maytotally miss the mark of your ultimate goal -- more sales. Gettingtargeted web site traffic, meaning people who are literally searchingfor a product or service to solve their need, is really what SEO is allabout.

Powerful, effective web content fulfills two important business needs:

It attracts targeted web site traffic by incorporating keywordphrases chosen specifically for each web page.

It increases conversions with compelling content, marketing andselling techniques, and factual, useful information.

To achieve and maintain top placements, webmasters must create important facts and knowledgeable information that major engines like Google require. Content is more important than ever -- Google's team is trying to give surfers the most relevant and useful web pages.

......LD SHARMA

Search Engine Optimisation - The Latest and the Greatest

SEO – The Latest and Greatest News

As we have noted in our article and on many occasions when speaking about SEO, it is not always about the latest and greatest. Real results from SEO come from diligent work by someone with knowledge and expertise. Following the most current trends, tricks and techniques can lead to trouble down the road.

With so many questions out there about SEO, you need to remember to focus on what matters. A solid site foundation and aggressive, ethical optimization methods.
We know the questions are out there, so here are the answers you are looking for….

How Important is Content?

Content is King. This has never been more true. Focus on solid content that is keyword rich and has a strong marketing messages for your site visitors. Make your site the source for information in your industry.

Who has a bigger Index, Yahoo or Google?

The truth is, it doesn’t really matter. It isn’t about size, it is about relevance. The engine that can deliver the most relevant results to a search query is truly the winning engine. So, it’s not the size of the index that matters, it is what they do with the information in the index and how it is delivered. The real question behind this question is: “which engine should I use when I do my searches and which engine should I focus on in my marketing”. The answer to those questions are; use the engine that you feel delivers the best results. Don’t buy into the hype stating which engine people think is best. Use many engines and then find the one you like the best. You never know, a new leader may emerge. The more people try engines and demand better results from them, the more the industry as a whole benefits. As far as marketing goes, you can’t afford to focus on just one. Your goal is to get exposure and traffic. Why limit it? Focus on all of the top engines and achieve maximum exposure for your site.

Can Google Follow Links in Flash?

While Google can read and index Flash, it cannot follow links in Flash. Make sure all links are plain text.

Is PageRank Still Important?

Yes - PageRank has always been important to Google. Google still uses the algorithm to help determine rankings.

Do You Need to Use the Google Sitemap Tool?

If your site is already getting crawled by Google and pages are being added to their index, you do not need to use the Google sitemap submission tool. The sitemap submission tool was created to provide a way for sites which normally do not get crawled to gain the attention of Google and be crawled and indexed.

Is it Really Important to Remove Javascript, Define CSS Off-page And Keep my Code Clean?

Yes. By placing your CSS and javascript in external files you remove excess code from the page, which makes it easier and faster for the spiders to find your wonderful keyword rich content.

Minimizing the use of tables also helps reduce the HTML to text ratio, making the text stand out to the engines.

Clean, error-free code is also essential. It ensures the engines won’t get stuck or lost – they can simply and easily spider through your site and eat up your content.

Your keyword rich text should appear as close to the top of your code as possible. Sometimes this is difficult, when top or side (left) navigation appear first in the code. You can always try a different page layout or even consider using CSS to reposition the text for the engines.

Do Too Many Keywords in the Domain Name Harm You?

Too many keywords in a domain, all separated by dashes is a red alert for the spiders.

How Many Links Should You Have on Your Sitemap?

Google recommends 100 links per page.

Are Dynamic Urls Bad?

Google says that a dynamic URL with 2 parameters "should" get indexed.

Hot off the press bonus section to your Whitepaper...

“The Bourbon Update…RSS Feeds….Blogging…Pinging…the Google Patent…Google Site Maps and more…”

“How am I supposed to keep up with all of this and run a business? Can’t someone explain it all?”

Absolutely – we can! We have the bottom line on the latest search engine news and how it

impacts YOU.

Many people saw sweeping changes after the Bourbon Update. People lost rankings, they watched their PageRank decrease and they sat back helplessly watching their hard earned traffic slipping away.

Then, as if it were an apology from Google itself, they changed the rules and opened the doors to let us in! With Google Site Map Beta, we can now control how Google indexes pages, and we can guide Google to pick up the pages quicker than ever before – in most cases in about 4 hours!

The tremendous opportunity created by Google Site Map, as well as blogging, pinging and various other techniques (all 100% ethical) make this an exciting time to get involved in the SEO game and claim the customers that should be yours! Whether you lost them in an update or never had them to begin with – NOW is the best time to act and stake your share of the claim.

A bit of an older update, but important none the less…Yahoo has its own results… Google has its own results… Now MSN has its own results!

After Yahoo released their ground-breaking search engine technology independent of industry leader Google, the landscape of SEO changed, and continues to change. This is obvious to anyone who uses both Google and Yahoo for queries on a regular basis. While major queries provide similar results from the two engines, the results become vastly different once you move away from more common search criteria.

Beyond that, MSN recently released a beta version of their own search algorithm for user testing. MSN removed the beta after a short period of testing, but accompanied the removal with an apology and a promise: they’ll be back. And they did come back! So it looks like the company is positioning itself to become a powerhouse in the SEO game.

For those whose business and life centers around the leads generated by high search engine placement, these developments can be a little bit frightening at first glance. Which search engine deserves your attention? Which is being used by more people? What are we supposed to do now that we focused on Google and Yahoo is taking their market share? How are you supposed to handle all of the different requirements and criteria?

Don’t worry, we can help! First of all, the top focus of any online company should be to stay informed. Get a daily dose of SEO news and make sure you’re well aware of new developments in the industry. Second, take action. This is prime time for online businesses! Yahoo and Google may be the primary competitors, but the winners in this shakedown are those seeking listings. Because the algorithms on each engine differ so much, you now have two sets of top 20 listings – that’s 40 spots of premium real estate available to your sites. MSN’s release will add another 20 to the mix.

Remember, attention means activity. The more news stories this competition generates, the more users both Yahoo and Google will gain, which means more people searching for what you have to offer. It’s still a little frightening, but we’re here to help every step of the way, from staying informed to creating fully optimized sites for your company. Check back on a regular basis for more updates on the SEO game as we know it! Until then, keep reading for a step-by-step plan to optimizing and maintaining your sites for nearly every possible scenario.

.................LD Sharma