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Posts Tagged ‘SEO’
10 ways to increase your pagerank
1. Use lots of meta keyword tags
Use it WITH Commas. Make sure you don’t repeat the same word more than 3 times in a row. Google only indexes the first 101K of the document – so don’t use TOO many.
2. Make sure you include at least one link to Google
They need quality traffic as well. Don’t be greedy and hog it all to yourself. This can do wonders for your pages. Remember – Google may be going public soon – so the more traffic you send them the better.
3. Use invisible text but make it close
Colors like 00FF33 & 00FF66 are both browser safe, but are so close most humans can’t tell the difference. Even though Google has over 50 PhDs on staff – none of them probably know this – so use it – the bottom of the page is a good place – right above what you will learn in number 4.
4. Dots, Dots, and More Dots
Put them at the bottom of your document like this:
………….
Then link each one to your pages – make sure you link one to Google and for good measure another to Yahoo. Don’t link to other sites (other than your own) that aren’t search engines. Don’t even link to sites that used to be search engines – like AltaVista.
5. This tip is probably the most powerful one on here
Make at least three pages on your site and link them as follows:
- Page 1 >>>>>> Page 2
- Page 2 >>>>>> Page 3
And this is the kicker
- Page 3 >>>>>> Page 1
Google will give points to page 2 from page 1, then to page 3 from page 2, and then – if you link it back to page 1 – it starts all over again. I can’t even count how many points this will end up giving you. Just don’t abuse it too much – or the big sites will complain you are taking too much PR from them.
6. Use H1 Tags for your entire page (except the title and other header information)
You can use CSS Style sheets to make them look smaller and Google will give you bookoo points for having everything so big on the page (even though it doesn’t look big to the user).
7. Submit early and submit often
I prefer to submit on a Sunday. That way – on Monday morning – the Googleplex will be swamped with so much to do – my submits will slip by. See the Googleplex hard at work. Would you work to ban submits if you could get FREE goat cheese (especially after doing two days without). Wouldn’t you rather play "chopsticks" on a grand piano while getting a massage? Or look at pages all day of Britney Spears? NUMBER 8
8. Link back too other people linking to your page using link:www.example.org.
This is similar to the technique in #5, but not as powerful.
9. Be careful spelling
Words like "PENS" and "ANGINA" can easily be misspelled to be words of the male and female anatomy respectively. This will cause Google to mistake your site for an ADUL† Site – and get it banned. Noticed how I used a special character to look like the letter "T" in the word before site. Use clever tricks like this throughout your documents.
10. If all else fails
mail a 10 spot wrapped inside a number 10 envelope (make sure you wrap one layer of aluminum foil around it). Write your URL above the serial number on the front. If it won’t fit, then that’s THE problem – as Google hates long URLs.
10 Ways to Promote Yourself on Web 2.0
After reading about how various indie musicians promote themselves in a NY Times magazine article this past weekend, and meeting Scott Ginsberg for the first time, I have a series of Web 2.0 epiphanies.
Ginsberg is the Nametag Guy, a smart young man who wears “Hello, my name is Scott” nametag on his shirt all day, every day, for the past several years. He has a blog, a podcast, a Squidoo “lens”, an email listserv, an RSS feed, Digg and Technorati references, Myspace and Facebook entries, YouTube snippets, and probably one or two other things too. In between updating all these things, he writes books and is a professional speaker. He totally gets how to promote himself using the latest tools.
People and businesses that will succeed in this brave new world have a lot of work to do to. The old days of putting together a few pages (or a few hundred) of static HTML are so over. The good news is that most of the tools are free for the downloading. All it will take is your time. The bad news is that the time investment is non-trivial. You can’t farm this out to someone to just do it for you. It has to become part of your own online psyche and daily activities. Like the Katie Couric ghost-blog debacle, it isn’t something you want to delegate.
Here are my top ten tips that I have learned along the way:
1. Email is still the best way for anyone to enter your ecosystem
I have been doing these essays for more than 10 years, and many of you are still reading them and responding. Email is the best way for people between 30 – 50 years old to contact you and stay in touch. Why not younger than 30? Because these people are using IM, Facebook, Myspace, and probably 13 other “social network” sites. They certainly have email addresses and spend time with email, but probably not to the extent that you would want to count on this form of communication. Why not older than 50? Well, I am just putting an arbitrary age here, but eventually, you are getting to the non-typing pre-war generation that doesn’t want to communicate via email – until all of their friends or grandkids get on it. These are still people that have their assistants print out their corporate emails – don’t laugh, I have seen too many situations.
2. You don’t just want to focus on email, you still need to be approachable in Web 2.0-space
List all of your electronic coordinates in one place on your Web site, and include a phone number for good measure, because that makes it all real. Don’t do a “contact form” that hides your email address – that is so old school and off-putting, and anyone worth their HTML code can figure out what the embedded email address is anyway.
3. Give something away for free
Really. You do this to build credibility and also to give people a taste of what you will charge them for. Ginsberg is giving away his latest book on his blog, and he is so comfortable with doing that because he knows this will build word-of-mouth and drive sales. The indie musicians profiled in the Times are giving away MP3s. Some have taken this a step further and are even experimenting with demand-based pricing that turns out to net them more than the 99-cent download standard at iTunes.
4. Think about lists of useful stuff that you can offer others
I have a page of links to various Web conferencing tools on my site that used to be in the top four sites when you searched on Google (today is down to #13, I guess I am slipping up). I have had this page on my site for about a decade, and started it on a whim. Now I get vendors who want me to list their stuff there. Squidoo has institutionalized this with their “lens” approach, and Pageflakes has something similar with their shared pages (You can see my RSS feeds and sites that I frequent here). Each of these approaches takes something that you know, and filters that you apply to the Wide World, and puts a very small amount of your own stamp and value to it. http://www.pageflakes.com/david90
5. Remember the Web is all about short attention spans
Call it the 4-4-4 rule: The average person spends less than four seconds looking at a Web page. They abandon a site if they can’t find something in four clicks. Any video should be shorter than four minutes, or people won’t bother watching it.
6. Video matters more
Speaking of videos, start to think about ways that you can put more content into (short) video segments on your site, and then post them to YouTube and other video-sharing places.
7. Don’t just Digg
Sites like Digg.com and Technorati.com that point people to your content are terrific ways to spread the word, but need care and feeding as you post new content – you have to add the entries on their sites to point to your new stuff. But also consider other places such as EzineArticles.com that will promote your content. If you post enough content on these other sites, you can leverage them better too.
8. Titles and keywords matter
When you add content to these pages, think of snappy headlines and catchy keywords. Because that is what people are going to be searching for and seeing when they scroll around.
9. Exploit your readers/fans/listeners/viewers
Everyone is big these days on “user-generated content” but there is much more to this than meets the eye. The people that consume your content are your best promoters. Leverage them, take care of them, and they will make you rich and famous. Or at least amongst your own ecosystem. The NYT article mentions how the musicians have cleverly used their fans to generate tracks on their songs, schedule concert dates in particular cities, and other activities. I try to answer every email that you send me, even if it is just to acknowledge receipt. Part of this is respecting your readers, part of it is a new way of interacting with them. I remember when we started Network Computing magazine back in 1990 and put our author’s email addresses at the end of the articles. We were fearless! But we got some great feedback.
10. Think about all the communities you belong to
Does each one have its own equivalent of an A-list blogger? Someone who has a page a mile long of MySpace “friends” or LinkedIn “connections? A common calendar of events that is easy to subscribe to via RSS? A list of recommended books/videos/music?
There is so much more to do with Web 2.0. I have to run, and post this article on the various places mentioned here, and get the emails out.
About the author – David Strom is a noted speaker, author, podcaster and consultant who has written two books and thousands of magazine articles for dozens of IT publications such as Computerworld, eWeek, Information Week and Network Computing. His blog can be found at http://strominator.com, and he can be reached at david@strom.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Strom
10 Ways To Make More Money from AdSense Using Keywords
1. Obtain a URL with very important keywords in your niche
I can’t say enough about this. The #1 reason I have so many domains is because when you build a niche site if the domain has your top 2 or 3 keywords in it – you immediately start getting traffic from post #1. This is very important.
2. Use permalinks, pretty URL’s, etc
This is second most important whether you are using Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, or whatever. As soon as you setup your software turn on permalinks, pretty URL’s, or whatever it’s called so you posts have "site.com/this-is-my-post". Having great keywords in the URL past the top level domain name is only second to keywords in the domain name itself.
3. Find the Best Keywords and Phrases
DO YOUR RESEARCH! Find out how to do keyword research. If you don’t know what the best keywords for your niche are – there really isn’t much point reading any farther than this…
4. Create a Great Title
When you write a post the title controls much more than you think. Everyday I read great articles with crappy titles. With every title you need to be thinking of using keywords that will be searched for while linkbaiting a title enticing people to click. This can be harder than it sounds, because the best titles are 6-8 words or less. I’ve gotten better at this over time, but it’s just practice, practice, practice to become a master at it!
5. Have an H1 Title first
Wordpress natively takes your html post title tag and puts it into an H1 tag as the textual title on the post’s web page. If you use another CMS like Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, or something else make sure your Content Management System does the same. Keywords in header tags (especially the first header of the page) carry much more weight than later in the content areas.
6. Start with a Synopsis Paragraph
Unless you are writing custom meta description tags for every single page the most important area of any post or page after the title is that first paragraph. This paragraph ultimately becomes your description under you title link in search engine results pages. You want to stick to 2 or 3 sentences when possible, or at least place your important keywords there. Remember – what you type will not only determine how well this page comes up in search results, but also how your page is described and why people click!
7. Bold important keywords as you write
As you write your post or article bold keywords and phrases when you are making points. These keywords, combined with your title and synopsis help target ads (and traffic!).
8. Link relevant sources
This is a given, but should be mentioned. Be sure to link only relevant items in your post – it helps target everything.
9. Organize sections using h3 and h4 headings
Using h3 and h4 headers in longer pages and posts is a great way to "sub-title" the page with even more targeted keywords. It’s also easier to organize information (and for more people to follow and read).
10. Use keyword laden categories and tags
Just before you publish that page or post, be sure to use great keywords to both categorize and tag it.
10 ways to attract web traffic to your blog
The beauty of creating a blog is that you can add it to your current web site or use it as a standalone website. If you don’t constantly market your blog you won’t attract many visitors or make many sales.
Here are the top 10 ways to attract web traffic to your blog:
1. Add fresh content
If you consistently add new content you will not only attract regular readers but also the search engines. Try to add new content to your blog at least 3 times a week.
2. Optimize your content
Make sure you optimize the titles, paragraphs and links within your content. This means you must first do keyword research to incorporate keywords related to your content.
3. Include keywords in your tags
WordPress allows you to include tags below each post. Place your most popular keywords in these tags separated by commas.
4. Add meta tags
Use the headspace or seopack plugin to add title and description meta tags to each post. Search engines place great emphasis on title tags that contain your keyword at the beginning.
The description meta tag is what visitors read about your site when they find it in the search engines. Make sure the description of your page will get the reader to click to your content.
5. Create internal links
An individual post won’t get much traction in the search engines unless you get links pointing to it. If you have related content from other areas of your blog create a text link (anchor text) within that post that links to your current content.
Your blog post ranking will increase in proportion to the number of links pointing to it.
6. Encourage commenting
Include questions within your content and encourage readers to leave a comment. This increases blog interactivity. Readers will see it’s an active blog and will want to read the comments and provide their own feedback.
7. Leave comments on other blogs
Find blogs that have content related to your own and write a comment that compliments their post or is in response to others’ comments. With each comment include a link back to your own blog.
8. Use trackbacks
A trackback is a procedure for notifying the original blog poster that you have linked to their blog post from your blog. Create lots of trackbacks to popular blog posts from your own blog. This will encourage those you trackback to do the same for you and will increase traffic to your site.
9. Submit to blog directories
Google "top directories to submit your blog" to get a free list of the top 100+ blog directories you can submit your blog to.
10. Submit RSS Feed to RSS Directories
To submit your blog or RSS feed to a list of RSS and blog directories, Google "top rank RSS blog directories."
Blog marketing is a process that must be done consistently to reap great benefits. By employing the strategies mentioned above you’ll see a steady flow of web traffic that will increase over time.
Need help driving traffic to your blog or web site? Please visit Search Engine Optimization Services
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com Affordable Web Site Design, Web Hosting and SEO.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Herman_Drost
10 ways to get traffic from StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a new free service where internet surfers can discovers new website according to their interest. StumbleUpon lets you “channelsurf” the best-reviewed sites on the web. This helps you find interesting WebPages you wouldn’t think to search for. For webmaster, StumbleUpon is another great way to get traffic to their site which might bring more subscribers and sells.
Bringing a huge traffic to your site from StumbleUpon is achievable if you follow these 10 steps. Stumblers are often tend to get a Digg and other social-bookmaking sites so never not underestimate the traffic that you got from them. Just make sure that you sign up and submit your website there first. Now here are the tips.
1. Tag your site to the related category
so that the visitor can expect what they will find in your website. Build a good, unique, and informative content.
2. Use an eye-catching headline
like “secret” or “shock”. The visitor will curious to know what is inside your website.
3. Put the StumbleUpon integration code
to every page in your site but do not stumble all your pages by yourself.
4. Be a part of the stumble community
so that you will know what they are mostly interested with.
5. Prepare your site with “viral marketing technique”
so that the number of traffic will double from the Stumblers.
6. Ask your friend to “thumbs up” your site
and you did the same to his/her website.
7. Suggest your reader to try StumbleUpon
and install the toolbar to increase the number of your pages got “thumbs up”.
8. Add as many “StumbleUpon” friends as possible
(the result is same as above).
9. If you got many websites, link them together
If one of your website got stumbled well, the other site might receive the effect too.
10. Optimize your website loading time
If can, avoid flash since not all browser can support the latest flash version.
10 ways to kill your website
When explaining SEO to a potential client I usually break it down into 3 key areas.
- Technical SEO, being all those on-site things they don’t understand such as duplicate content and fixing ugly URLs etc.
- On-page SEO being the process of choosing the best words for your pages and using them in the right places and,
- Link building, the process of getting people to link to you. Clients often confuse this one with linking out to other people, thinking it’s helping them somehow.
Technical SEO is not really a matter of improving your rankings, it’s more about making sure you don’t make some colossal cock-up that will stop your site from being indexed. This post covers 10 common mistakes people make with their technical SEO.
1. Brand new website, completely flash
I had the privilege of explaining to someone recently that the 5k he had just spend on his new website recently was not money well spent. The whole site was one flash file, and had no text content, making it invisible to search engines. The sad part was that the site didn’t need flash – animation effects were limited to mouseovers on buttons, easily replicated using javascript.
Just because Google says they can read content within swf files doesn’t make it a good idea. If search engine rankings are important, make sure there is plenty of text content for spiders to find.
2. Forgetting to redirect old pages
When you replace that old FrontPage site with your swanky new CMS and completely change all URLs on the site, make sure you setup 301 redirects from the old pages to the new pages.
If you don’t, all the links you have naturally been accumulating will now be broken, meaning Google is likely to ignore them for ranking purposes, and webmasters are likely to remove them from their sites.
Anyone who has gone through the process of building links naturally will know how precious these are, so 301ing the old pages to the new pages is critical.
It takes only a few minutes to do, pay someone to do it if you have to.
3. A robots.txt blunder
Putting a bad line into your robots.txt file is a pretty fast way to axe your site from the search results. If you don’t know what robots.txt is all about, then perhaps it’s worth thinking twice about playing with it?
Google has a tool for checking your robots file, so take the time that any changes are done correctly.
4. <p class="big-heading">No H1 headings</p>
I hate this one so much. Who really knows if the H1 is weighted heavily or not in Google’s algorithm, but my gut feeling is that it is important. I so often see websites where the major heading on the page is not a H1, it’s a styled paragraph or simply a div.
CSS can be used to redefine the styles for existing page elements, such as H1 headings, so it just makes sense to use a H1 tag for your major heading.
5. Site wide meta description
It’s really easy to stick a meta description into your website template and see it used on every page of your site. Unfortunately, this can axe your site from the search results pretty quickly. If you have a site wide meta description, then all it takes is a more powerful site to steal your meta description and suddenly they will be ranking instead of you (your site will be lost in the duplicate content filter).
Take the time to use a unique meta description on every page, or leave it blank.
6. Splash pages
The splash page or flash intro page is essentially an empty page (as far as the search engines see it) with a single link to your homepage.
What this means is that your navigation structure is now one level deeper. The page that would have beena PR5 is now a PR4, and Google visits your "homepage" less often (because the splash page is actually the homepage).
If you really really must use a flash intro or splash page, do the right thing and add a little paragraph of text at the bottom for the search engines to see. Also place links to your other top-level pages, not just the homepage, so the link juice spreads around the site properly.
7. 404s with content
I have seen some interesting ways of rewriting URLs, and my favorite had to be the 404 method. Basically, every page returns a 404 header, and a custom 404 handler (a PHP script) was used to deliver the page content to the browser.
Unfortunately, Google ignores the content and just sees the 404 error, so this site had no show of appearing in search results.
This is uncommon, but it’s worth using a little extra caution when delivering a 404 to the browser. 404s can spell bad things for your site when you get them wrong.
8. Ads, ads, ads
While not strictly a technical issue, nothing screams "don’t link to me" like an affiliate thin content site crawling with Adsense. If you expect to do well in the search engines, you need links, and it’s not worth losing links for the sake of a few dollars a month in Adsense revenue.
Advertising is something that should be added to an established website with established traffic, it’s unlikely you will get rich from advertising revenue on a brand new domain with no links.
9. Black hat that doesn’t need to be black hat
Har har, I’ll write this paragraph of really crap content with some useful keywords and make it white on a white background so people can’t see it.
Thing is, it doesn’t take much more effort to create good content with useful keywords in it and make it visible to your users. People spend time creating dodgy doorway pages when they should be optimizing their content pages. Adding crap hidden content to the homepage when they should be writing good sales copy.
Black hat tricks like this are an invitation for other webmasters to burn you (Google never finds out on it’s own). Before going ahead with a black hat scheme, look for white or grey hat alternatives first.
10. Multiple domains and dupe content
I once brought a site from top 60 rankings to top 20 by doing nothing other than removing 14 out of 15 versions of their homepage.
They had…
- www.domain.co.nz
- domain.co.nz
- www.domain.co.nz/default.asp
- www.domain.co.nz/default.asp?pageid=1
- www.domain.com
- www.otherdomain.co.nz
- otherdomain.co.nz
- secure.domain.co.nz
- secure.domain.co.nz/default.asp
etc.
Each version of the homepage had a certain amount of link authority, and the version with the most power showed up in the search results. I redirected all that link power into the main page, and all of a sudden, the rankings jumped, having changed nothing else.
Is your site wasting precious link juice on duplicate versions of your homepage?
