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TOP 10 SEO Tips - The Do's
1
Research the BEST keywords
2
Know your competition
3
Optimize your Title Tag
4
Optimize your META Tags
5
Use Heading Tags
6
Use Title and ALT attributes
7
Use detailed file names (nomenclature)
8
Create a Site Map page
9
Include Robots.txt file
10
Install sitemap.xml file for Google®
Top 10 SEO Tips - The Don'ts
1
Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords
2
Putting too many keywords in your META tags
3
Repeating the same keyword too many times
4
Creating too many site entry pages
5
Using hidden text
6
Creating pages with images only
7
Not using the NOFRAMES tag in case your site uses FRAMES
8
Using Page Cloaking
9
Using automated Search Engine (SE) submission tools
10
Submitting too many pages per day
12 Quick Tips To Search Google
Like An Expert
1.
Explicit Phrase: Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.
Example: “internet marketing”
2.
Exclude Words: Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the “-“ sign in front of the word you want to exclude.
Example Search: internet marketing -advertising
3.
Site Specific Search: Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the “site:somesite.com” modifier.
Similar Words and Synonyms: Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the “~” in front of the word.
Example: “internet marketing” ~professional
5.
Specific Document Types: If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier “filetype:”. For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.
Example: “internet marketing” filetype:ppt
6.
This OR That: By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).
Example: internet marketing OR advertising
7.
Phone Listing: Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.
Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).
8.
Area Code Lookup: If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.
Example: 617
9.
Numeric Ranges: This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.
Example: president 1940..1950
10.
Stock (Ticker Symbol): Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.
Example: GOOG
11.
Calculator: The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.
Example: 48512 * 1.02
12.
Word Definitions: If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the “define:” command.
Example: define:plethora
Hope this proves useful in your future Google searches.
Build It and They Will Come. Would that it were true.
Search engine optimization, and search engine marketing in general, can serve a number of different purposes. It can generate sales, both online and offline. It can generate leads. It can convince search engine users to take the actions you desire, such as signing up for your newsletter, downloading white papers from your site, registering for a seminar, and so on. And while it is doing all this, your website’s prominent position on the search engine results pages (SERPs) contributes to branding and name recognition.
When done correctly, search engine optimization can bring people to your site that are actually looking for what you are offering. You know they’re looking for it because they typed in a key word or phrase that is directly related to your content. Most consumers are really tired of being inundated with marketing everywhere they look, but are still receptive to the kind of “just-in-time” marketing represented by a high placement in search engine results.You may be thinking that a search engine should be able to give you a good place in its results without you having to do anything special to your website. It’s true that search engines are constantly working on their technology to make sure they deliver the most relevant results, but there will always be a limit to how well they can operate. Also, the way you have set up your site (title, headers, META tags, and so on) may end up hiding your site too deep in the search results, where hardly anybody looks. Even worse, you might not be targeting relevant keywords.
"An SEO professional can help you target the right keywords and make sure users actually see you – and that the ones that see you really are looking for what you have to offer."
The truth is, search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization’s success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other form of marketing. Given this, investing in SEO, whether through spending money to have a professional do it, or spending time doing it yourself, can provide an exceptional rate of return.
Search engine optimization these days is just one of many flavors of search engine marketing. A good SEO company will go over your options with you, taking your budget into account. Nowadays, search engine marketing can include SEO, pay-per-click, paid inclusion, search contextual ads, and pay-per-call.
SEO, as already mentioned, involves altering your website structure and content to make it easier for the search engine spiders to index. A well-optimized site will get you a higher rank in the search engines. A good SEO will make sure you are optimized for the right terms, and avoid practices that could get your site banned from the search engines. He or she will also make sure that your site is friendly to visitors – after all, the whole point of this exercise is to attract customers, so it doesn’t help if they don’t enjoy their visit!
Pay-per-click is a popular advertising model. You purchase search listing text ads that are ranked based on keyword bid price. These ads show up in the sponsored listing section of the search results. You pay the bid amount when users click on your ad. The click takes them to a landing page. Pay-per-click ads need to be closely monitored for how effective the keyword is; you might need to adjust your bid or change your keyword. Pay-per-click users need to watch their budget closely, and guard against click fraud.
Paid inclusion calls for the website owner to pay for guaranteed, fast inclusion and frequent visits from a search engine spider. Note that this approach only gets you into the database quickly; it does not guarantee that you will achieve a high ranking in the SERPs. A site owner might want to use this approach if the site is new or very dynamic.
Search contextual ads are ads that are placed on relevant publisher sites and distributed through the major search engines. For example, if you sell fishing poles, and you advertise with Google AdSense, your ad might show up on a page on a website devoted to fishing hobbyists. The ads rotate, so your ad might not be in the same place all the time. Google, Yahoo! and MSN have distribution networks of approved publishers that display these ads and split revenue with the search engines. For many, it can be a useful stream of income. As with pay-per-click ads, you are reaching an audience that is already interested in what you have to offer.
You may have heard of all the services I mentioned above. But search engines are constantly changing; they have to, to keep up with the Internet itself. As a consequence, not only do their listings change, but they frequently come up with ideas for new services to offer. Some of these include new advertising options. You might not be aware of them, but it is the job of a good SEO to be on top of what the search engines are offering.
For example, take pay-per-call. This fairly new service was started by Ingenio very early in 2005; AOL began offering the service in April 2005. Google began limited testing of a pay-per-call service in late November. The premise behind pay-per-call is that some “high touch” products and services benefit from personal contact. Advertisers bid for phone call leads. With the Google service, searchers see a phone icon next to the company’s sponsored listing. A click on that icon lets them enter a phone number and click a “Connect for Free” button to be linked with the other party. At this point, Google calls the search user, then dials the company and connects the two.
As you might expect, pay-per-call is more expensive than pay-per-click. But there is a lot of room for growth here, and the potential that companies who wouldn’t normally think of advertising with search engines might consider it. It emphasizes local search and is supposed to help small businesses. Some think that eBay might start to offer pay-per-call advertising, thanks to its recent purchase of Skype.
And then there’s the behavioral approach, revisited. In the last few months, Yahoo! made a change to one of its advertising programs. The change widens the time window during which advertisers can drop behaviorally targeted banners after a search term is entered from one hour to two days. This change was made after some research Yahoo! did indicated that the purchase window was longer than the company previously thought. It reflects the fact that people are using the Internet differently from the way they were using it three or four years ago. As Yahoo! continues to work on better understanding online behavior, it’s likely that the search engine will come up with more ways to make advertising work smarter to reach its target audience.
Which of these approaches, or combination of approaches, would be best for your business? It can be hard to sort out. But this is the sort of thing that an SEO does every day, for a large number of businesses, many of them similar to yours.
DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warrantied or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. or OSG. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result by implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.
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