1. Image file naming conventions

This search engine marketing tip comes from the fact that an increasing number of people are relying on image searches if they want to find a new website. There is an absolute correlation between normal and image web search results and even rankings.

2. Keyword phrases and density

The key to successful search engine marketing has its roots in keyword phrases and density. After analysing keyword density, be sure to optimise your keyword phrases so they appear on top, on the bottom and in the middle of your webpage. If you have to, rewrite webpage text to accommodate the SEO of keyword phrases.

3. Backlinks

You must never overlook or underestimate the importance of Backlinks in search engine marketing. By utilising your keyword phrases as the link, you can construct a high-quality network of Backlinks. Keep in mind that if there is no logical, sufficient reason for a website to link back to you, you should reject said link because it will do your Backlink efforts no good.

4. Fresh content

The beauty of fresh content with regards to search engine marketing success is that it can aid in improving your search rankings. To help achieve this, be sure to add useful and new content to your webpages on a consistent basis. In the eyes of search engines, fresh content actually adds relevancy to your website, which is why it aids in improving your website’s search rankings.

5. Review

After you have created a more search-engine friendly website, review your efforts by first waiting until Google indexes your site. Then analyse the results and follow up with any necessary adjustments until you obtain the desired, maximum optimisation.

I often have people complain and moan about how Google, Yahoo or MSN your site ranking

In addition to the loss of the website itself, the most common error in this type of scenario to rake in just a search engine more on customer dependence. The Flaming ignore other online marketing channels is a common practice that leaves many businesses and webmasters to employ a full time, more established companies look.

The end result is to diversify its business strategy. You should always have a reserve or a contingency plan. If it does and search engine optimisation, will hurt your SEO arsenal is a negative shock, but not completely cripple your business other than business strategy. There e-mail marketing, banner advertising, affiliate programs and other techniques such as direct marketing in the success of your marketing can play an integral role. These techniques are useful or as accurate depending on your industry, and also with search advertising alone can be useful.

Some techniques that will help you diversify your marketing plans are:

Online Marketing

A visible place on your site’s URL in print. This lead to people visiting your website, and if they like what they see or find what they need, they can buy from you. Not what you’re looking in the first place?

Diversity

SEO as a single technique, all of them do not care strategies. As the old saying, do not put all your eggs in one basket. Basket fall and all the eggs will break. Diversity, variety, and a little more variety.

Press releases – a powerful little known

Never underestimate the power of well-written press release. There are many excellent online news presentation by the major search engines are sites being monitored. The most important keywords you with a healthy density is a good press release, their press release (and therefore your website) will appear in the news all the search engine features.

Online Directories

Based on specific areas of your business online directories or niche vertical sites which may be tailored to your industry. Find them and submit their articles or press releases. Customers seeking information about your field that your site is the site well.

Site Updates

Keep your site updated. You regularly news or features search engines can pick up quickly. Union parts of your site, you will reach a wider audience. Type an area or post comments on your site is good because the customers and visitors to write about your services or products, thus increasing the content of your website and improve your search results allows. There is nothing better than free stuff, right?

Look at your competition

Always keep an eye on the competition. Learn from their strategy. See how his moves hurt or something more to offer you the opportunity for giving. Then go back and do outside of what your opponents based on their revised strategy.

My personal opinion on that, because a truly successful web site:

• This is a well-designed to adapt day to ensure long term stability is important website.
• The next step is to ensure that your site is constantly monitoring logs (Google Analytics is just amazing, and offers excellent coverage.) That their visitors and what pages are most popular, which gives the true picture. With weblogs, the ability to modify their website.
• Time for a good time to hire writers to write articles or links to your site to maintain fresh content (search engines really in favor of unique content and fresh)
• Patience is a virtue. You really have to wait 3-12 months to really see the impact of your SEO campaign.

We wish all the best for your online business to thrive. Patience and ethics of punishment.

Sometimes, we are so focused on off-page optimisation and forget essentials on-page optimisation. Site maps are so important but often overlooked!

Site Maps

A site map page is a dedicated page for hypertext links that are normally found on the footer of websites. A site map is the essential ingredient for search engine robots. A site map, a very good site map will have all the pages of your website on the one page. If done correctly, the robot, once it enters the site map, can visit every page of your entire website.

That is why it is crucial to ensure that the sitemap is prepared in the early stages of website development and some website design companies use the sitemap as a basis to create the website. In this way, all the pages are captured in one go. This means that more of your pages have a higher chance of coming up in search engine results for relevancy.

What do you find in a good site map?

• Provide text links to all pages on the website
• Give a short explanation of each page
• Give your visitors a map so that they can navigate your website easily
• Provide robots access to all pages listed on the sitemap
• Provide important keyword phrases in the site map

A site map’s main benefit is to give visitors an overview of the site’s areas in a single glance by dedicating an entire page. It is exactly like entering a museum and viewing the map so that you know where each exhibit is. A site map gives great visuals and if you are hard pressed for time and want to gain access to information, make sure you use the site map!

Below are a few great examples of site maps:

http://www.google.com/sitemap.html
http://www.yourseomanager.com.au/sitemap.html

With talk of keyword saturation and not being able to beat the competition is giving up too easily. The combination of two and three word phrases are often not looked at by your competition. This can be a real opportunity for you when you set about creating your keyword list and performing your keyword research.

Think Like Your Target Audience

Imagine you are a user; go to a search engine and type in what you think the user may type in search engines. Just do not assume the obvious. For example, if you are selling pet food and type in pet food, you may get dozens of entries. Try typing in pet food supplies or online pet food, or online pet food store. You will be surprised that people are trying many different combinations to search for a specific product or service.

Get a few friends or colleagues to brainstorm and come up with key phrases they may use to find a product or service online. You will be surprised at the variations and combinations different people come up with.

View The Source Code Of Your Competitor

Yes, this is legal and as long as they have not blocked it, you or anyone else can gain access to that. The source code will list in most cases the keyword used for the website. An added bonus you may find is the Title and Description of the website as well.

There, in full view you have just gained access to how your competitor has optimised their website.

A word of caution: Do not blindly copy the details verbatim. The reason is that most times there will be a variation in your website content as Google and other search engines ban copy sites. In addition, you may realise that even though they are you competitors, some of the keywords they use have no relevance to your product or service offering! Tread with caution.

View Content Of Your Competitor

By viewing the content of your competitor, you will get an idea of what keywords and key phrases they are using.  If they have optimised their website, then you will see the key phrases appearing in the source code, headings and in the actual content of the website.

You may soon realise that they may only have optimised the homepage and not the other pages, which gives you a huge advantage or may soon realise their website is not optimised at all or done incorrectly( the last point may not be easily detectable unless you know a little about SEO)

Use Keyword Tools

When you and your friends have completed the keyword research, it is time to test it using the many keyword tools available. They will be able to let you know if you are headed in the right direction and if the keywords are relevant. What’s more, these tools even offer suggested keywords you may not have thought of earlier.

Add Keywords Reflecting Your Local City

To get hold of the local market or city in some specific cases, it is always are good idea to include that in your Page Title as well as Meta Descriptions. That is why it is important to optimise your contact us page and include all your local information.

Keywords are a very important component of a successful PPC campaign and doing a little bit of research goes a long way in the success of your website longetivity.  Website statistics also give an insight into which keywords visitors have entered in search engines to visit your site. It is therefore very important to ensure the websites statistics are reviewed frequently.

Bloggers who are interested in building high traffic to their blog and maintaining a successful blog should pay particular attention to search engine optimisation techniques that can improve search engine rankings of their blogs.

All search engines use some type of ranking algorithm that is used to determine the order in which websites are returned when a user searches for information on the Internet for a specific topic. However, not all search engines use the same algorithm for this purpose. Therefore, there is no simple solution to optimise a blog for high rankings in search engines.

The Importance of Keywords

Using relevant keywords for the blog is one of the most common and one of the easiest ways to optimise search engines. However, not all bloggers agree that the best way to use relevant keywords to optimise search engines. Some bloggers believe keywords has often been used to create high keyword density, while others believe that using keyword density of less than 1% -3% of the investment and attention to the keywords are the most useful strategy.

Other bloggers build a strong case of using keywords as relevant to the flow of the blog post is sufficient to ensure search engines understand the content of the blog.

Regardless of the keyword strategy a blogger decides to employ, all bloggers can benefit from researching relevant keywords. They can create a blog that refers to a general topic such as pets, but may not be aware of the search terms typically used by Internet users when they are searching for pets related information.

Fortunately, there are many programs that generate keywords specifically related to a specific category or genre. This is a real bonus for bloggers as they now have a wider choice of additional keywords to consider such as pet health or pet grooming to attract the interest of users of search engines.

Generating Favourable Back Links

Back links are also another common factor used in the search engine ranking algorithms. Many search engines consider the number of links pointing back to a website and the quality of websites that provide these back links. This means that the search engines the site that points to your blog can affect the amount of weight behind the link helps your ranking. This is because some search engines consider higher ranking websites to be more valuable than other websites which do not rank well and therefore reward websites receiving back links from these high ranking websites quite favourably.

Some search engine algorithms also consider whether the back links are stationed or no answer. In these cases, there are links between generally considered more valuable than links from. Even back links linking link exchange or companies are generally not considered very influential position in search engines.

How Images Can Improve Search Engine Rankings

Bloggers should also be aware that all images used on their blog can be used to improve ranking in search engines a few of the search engines. This aspect of search engine optimisation is often overlooked because many bloggers believe the pictures are not available search engines.

Bloggers can take advantage of this by using the tags to provide relevant keywords, which can enhance the search engines. Tags are often incorporated into the text when a user scrolls over the image on your blog. Relevance is the key to success here.

Optimising your blog need not be hard at all. Follow the tips above for success.

These days online businesses are getting really frustrated with search engines regularly changing algorithms. However, there is not much to fear if you follow the basic principles. Try applying these principles to increase the rankings of your website.

Tip 1 – Do Not Change Domain Name

Do not jump the wagon and change your domain name. It can take a while for your domain to be picked up by search engines.

Tip 2 – Optimise Your Website

Optimise your site for your target audience, not the search engines. Always think about what impression your site gives your users; chances are you will create a better website the engines will like.

Tip 3 – Keyword Research

It is ideal to perform extensive keyword research. Everything else revolves around the keyword phrases you choose, so it’s critical you choose the best ones.

Tip 4 – Create A Friendly Site

Program your site to be “crawler” friendly. Search engines send out “crawlers” to gather information from your site so they understand how to rank it. Do not use complicated technology to create your website; it may backfire.
• Create your links using HTML, not javascript. Crawlers can’t follow javascript and won’t be able to read your information.
• Don’t design your site in Flash—there’s nothing for the crawlers to read. If they can’t interpret the information, they can’t classify your site.
• Make sure your copy is HTML, not a graphic of a text. It may look like copy. But if you have a text graphic, all the crawlers will see is a blank page.

Tip 5— Label your internal text links

Also do the same to the clickable image ALT attributes as descriptively as possible. Within the text links in your site, use the phrase that describes the page you’re clicking to. For image links, make sure those phrases are contained in the image’s code.

Tip 6— Write compelling copy for key pages

Write compelling copy for key pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases. Choose a few keyword phrases that apply to the particular page you’re writing and work those phrases into the copy. Some important pages would be the homepage and about us page. (the latter a page most commonly ignored!)

Tip 7—Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page’s unique title tag

Title tags are given significant weight with search engines. The title tag is the information that shows up in the search engine results so it’s crucial that it be enticing, not just crammed with keywords.
Some examples are:
Internet marketing resources – free articles, tools, news and reviews
Craig and Barry Tax Accountants in Melbourne, Australia

Tip 8—Make sure your site is link-worthy.

Search engines judge a site’s popularity by the number of links pointing to it. To make sure people will want to link to your site, you have to offer something worth linking to. Beyond your product or service, you need something that puts you over the top: an information service, a superior presentation, or great variety.

Tip 9—Do Not Just Stick To One Keyword

Sprinkle the essential keywords sensibly across your website. Remember, that different people will be using different search terms. You goal is to capture more with a variety of strong keywords.

I am sure the pointers above will be helpful and if you use one or two or all of the above, you will see improvements…slowly but steadily.

]]> http://www.yourseomanager.com.au/blog/search-engine-optimisation/9-basics-tips-of-website-optimisation/feed/ 0 http://www.yourseomanager.com.au/blog/search-engine-optimisation/black-hat-seo-versus-white-hat-seo/ http://www.yourseomanager.com.au/blog/search-engine-optimisation/black-hat-seo-versus-white-hat-seo/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:49:08 +0000 admin http://www.yourseomanager.com.au/blog/?p=224 Continue reading →]]> Some call it a question of ethics; others just call it business. The discussion is raging online and in marketing conferences around the world, but what exactly are black hat SEO and white hat SEO, anyway?

White Hat SEO is an angelic version of optimization, which means that only the techniques that are recommended – or at least not barred work – in the search engines and their constantly changing directions. Typically, results in terms of increased traffic and higher profits for last three months to one year. With this type of SEO is not afraid of having your site banned by search engines. Good search engine optimization company will use this method and if they really are, and will help to advise you that when done correctly, can last 12 months by 3 months for results to appear.

Black Hat SEO, on the other hand, are eager twin white hat SEO. Use a search engine specifically prohibited, such as hidden text and hidden links. This is called spam. Others say business savvy. Whether you call it like it is a search engine guru to learn the game and then show that you ran into nothing. This means that your company name and your name and business address types into the search box, and your site has not yet come. It is not a good idea for a company to sell worldwide.

White Hat SEO marketing and the text focuses on the updated website with keyword rich, informative articles with their customers and build strong over time. Black Hat SEO focuses on IT technology and tricks to get a ton of traffic right away.

It is important to consider what is your goal. Do you have a lot of traffic, whether you want a high turnover? Black Hat SEO, you immediate results in terms of visitors to your site, but these visitors want to buy what you offer? If not, who cares about the end of your site? White Hat SEO is more interested in targeted traffic, attracting the kind of visitor to your site that is actually looking for you and are ready to buy your products or services. Over time. Your traffic and sales are increasing, how to build a following by word of mouth and repeat customers

So what’s all the fuss about? Majority rules. White Hat SEO is so close. Black Hat SEO shows numbers instead. Who takes the time to research and abide by the rules they are irritable, have a high search engine rankings without the same pain.

When it comes, anyone using search engines, hoping to top rankings will use optimization to climb to the top of this list. If motivation is the only concern, then it is a matter of policy that may not have time. I just know that if you use technology, link farms and other illegal means, Which only focus on generating traffic and you get caught, you will be blacklisted from search engines. I’m not here to preach, but it is a matter of principle, do the right thing.

Obviously, the first major benefit of having a business website for your company is an increase in revenue.  As long as your website is properly optimised by a professional search engine company, your website will help you increase your sales of your company’s products or services.  When a website is properly optimised, it will be able to attract targeted visitors.  This means that the majority of the traffic your web site receives will be people that are already interested in the products or services your company is providing, which will make the task of completing a sale much easier (instead of trying to complete a sale with an un-targeted visitor).

In addition to increasing your company’s revenues, a quality website will increase the awareness of your company’s brand.  Because people will consistently see your website when they are searching for something in your industry, they will associate your company’s brand and name as a reliable leader in that industry.

Finally, when your company has its own web site, it will actually increase your company’s credibility in the off-line world.  Because people expect businesses of all sizes to have their own website, when you are able to print your web site’s URL on materials such as business cards or fliers, people will instantly feel that your company is more credible than one of your competitors that have not taken the time to have a website created for their company.

In order to have a properly optimised web site that your potential customers will actually be able to find when they visit a search engine like Google, you need to work with an internet marketing SEO firm.  This may cost money but it is important to lay the groundwork from the beginning to ensure sustainability.

In case you are not familiar with this terminology, an internet marketing SEO firm combines the practices of internet marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation) to provide their customers with the highest level of service.  Internet marketing methods include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising and viral marketing, while search engine optimisation is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results.

Although many firms only focus on internet marketing or search engine optimisation, by choosing a firm that is experienced in both fields, you can ensure that your website is properly optimised from every angle and provides the maximum amount of benefits for your company.

Choosing one of these firms is not as difficult or as daunting as it looks. Choose about 10 websites to visit and see the general layout of their website and the services they offer. Once you have narrowed down your selection, it may be a good idea to call and speak to the company directly. You will be surprised as to how much someone knows about their own product or not. This will ultimately assist in choosing the most appropriate search engine internet marketing company to work with.

The following twelve points will, I hope, summarise a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself which is growing at a very fast rate.

1. Content Is Half The Battle Won

Copywriting which is professional, effective, ethical and optimised is the most important factor in any search engine optimisation campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. A business website owner who can identify who the target market is can then have some of the pie too and most importantly move the website on a higher ranking in the “SERP’s” (Search Engine Results Page).

2. Analyse Web Logs.

If you have an existing website, measure it. This means you must have access to:
•    The number of visitors to your site on a daily basis
•    Which is the most popular page on the site
•    Which is the least popular page on the site
•    How much time are visitors spending on the site
•    Which page do they exit from

There are many more elements but if you do not have this information, then it is very difficult to make an informed decision as to what is working or not working on your website. One of the most powerful and free tools available in the market today is Google Analytics. It is easy to set up and offers you live information. In this way you are able to track your website progress and make changes where necessary without spending too much money on it.

3. Big numbers do no necessarily mean big results

If you hear claims from search engine companies that they can submit your website to 50,000 search engines, be weary. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on its own. Four of the main search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web.

4. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.

While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the “pay” stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often, after a thorough optimisation of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.

5. SEO is not Hocus Pocus

Most of the SEO techniques can be found online so there is no secret list or bible that search engine companies follow. You normally pay for their expertise in increasing the website ranking in search engines, thus creating greater visibility for your website.

6. SEO – Be Ethical

Many business websites will do anything to gain top rankings but it is a rather short existence. Avoid shortcuts or less ethical methods. Search engines are very powerful and they are constantly revising their selection methods and are up to speed with the “dirtiest of tricks” employed by ruthless internet marketers.
Therefore, it is important to choose the right search engine optimisation company for your business.

7. Important Link Information

Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR (Page Rank) value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. Gone are the days where for a sum of money was paid to a link farm and you had literally dozens of link of which more than half were irrelevant.

At the end of the day, Search Engine Optimisation is not as complex as people have made it out to be. It is a matter of understanding what is involved and using ethical principals will ensure the long-term survival of your online business.

Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The main ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. There is always the option to use advertising but we all know how expensive that option can be. By using search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.

Unfortunately, many business website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a “pretty” website. It is important to have a presentable site, but it must serve the fundamental purpose and that it bring in more sales for your business. So, what are some of the pitfalls someone can fall into?

1. Keywords – Not using them effectively

This is probably one of the most critical areas of website design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong one and you will hardly see any traffic to your site. It is therefore recommended to seek the services of a professional website design company which also use search engine optimisation elements to create a Search engine friendly website.

2. Keywords – Please do not repeat them

If you are new to keywords, you would be using the same keyword in the content again and again. Some users use it in each sentence. This is a big no-no and search engines actually look past these websites as “spam”. Keywords should be used in moderation and most people agree that using 2-3 keywords (2 to 3 times) on a content page is more than sufficient.

3. Do not steal content

Search engines change their algorithms all the time and one of the more recent changes is detecting duplicate content. Never steal content directly from a website; not even the images.
You can always get ideas from other sites but your content should be unique. Search engines favour content which is unique. Some sites are banned from search engine listings if found to be directly copying from other websites. If you cannot write the content for your websites, seek the help of professional writers.

4. Using keywords that are not related to your website

Some unethical website owners use keywords which are not even related to their website. A classic example is using the name of a celebrity as a keyword. Even though it is a popular keyword, it is a dead giveaway when someone lands on your site to discover what they are looking for is not available on your website. Instead, stick to keywords relevant to your site as the whole idea is to receive target traffic to your site who will convert later on to be your clients.

5. Do not hide your keywords

Yes, it is true. There are some people who stoop to a low level just to get traffic to their site. What they do is make the keywords invisible by changing the colour of the keyword font to match the background. This is clearly not a good idea as search engines are becoming really smart now. It is not worth getting your website blacklisted.

6. Search Engines have their own rules

To really stay ahead of your competition you have to realise that all search engines have their own logic and algorithms. This means that if you understand what sites they give more importance to, the higher your success rate of making your website visible to the online community.

7. Check your website regularly

Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. The reason is that you may have some important keywords located in some pages and if information is missing or links broken, it will only drive traffic away from your website instead of retaining the visitor.

The above are real examples of what has happened to website owners who have gone off and done their own thing. Play by the rules when it comes to search engine optimisation and work with a good website design company if you are planning to build a website from scratch because the SEO elements they incorporate from the website design phase will have long-time positive results for your business website.