Archive for the 'Search Engines' Category

Get your Site Indexed the Short and Simple Way

Written by admin on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 in SEO, Search Engines.

Everyone’s always talking about getting their website indexed. If your website is indexed on the major search engines, it helps your site have a higher position in the search engine rankings. This article will help you take the right steps to get your website indexed on the big search engines. Books could be written on the subject, but there are a few basic principles to learn.

First, after you have purchased your domain and built your site, you’re ready to begin promoting it and doing what you can to get it indexed on the major engines. You may not be aware of this, but it is very important to properly name your website’s title and make sure the heading of your page is defined within alt tags.

Installing Google Analytics will do several things. For one, it will help you keep an eye on your site and for another it will let Google know there’s a new site out there and at least someone is interested in its success. Once you do these things, you’re ready to move on.

Make sure that you have a sitemap of your website or your blog. That allows search engines to crawl your website and index the pages. You can wait until search engines find your sitemap, or you can give them a push by submitting your sitemap to rev up the process.

There’s not any cut and dried way of knowing if this speeds up the process of having search engines index your site, but it’s one of those steps that definitely doesn’t hurt.

You should promote your website by writing one or more articles on it. Write a simple article about your website and what it offers, and then submit it to several article directories. This helps you build some of those valuable back links that increase your site’s search engine ranking.

When you make comments in forums, if it is in keeping with the forum’s rules, make sure your signature links to your website. Ask or read the FAQs first to make sure this is OK.

Don’t just set your site up with Google Analytics and forget about it. Use Google Analytics to keep tabs on it. It will take time to get indexed, but if you continue to add new content and monitor your analytics, you can learn what works and what doesn’t.

If you follow these steps, you’ll get your site indexed as quickly as possible, which will drive more visitors to your website.

Making a Link Wheel to Increase Search Engine Rankings

Written by admin on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 in SEO, Search Engines.

Making a link wheel is one of the best ways to create quality back links. When doing so, select anywhere from 4 to 6 well-known 2.0 websites that have good rankings. Websites such as these will feature excellent PR and high traffic that link straight to your site. Choose a variety of sites, such as Blogger, WordPress, Squidoo, MySpace, Yola, Blogsome, and et cetera. Then, link each of them to your own site by using several different keywords and keyword phrases. Also, make sure that no articles you post have the duplicate content.

So, if your writing skills are above average, you can make a large link wheel to your website. Link wheels get their name from linking a website in a wheel-like fashion. For example, if your main website deals with the subject of SEO, and a page on your site talks about SEO services, you would need to have 6 articles posted about SEO services. You can either write 6 different articles, or have on original article rewritten several times. Either way, they all should have different content. And, all articles need 2 links: one link will lead people to your SEO services page, and the other link will lead people to the following spoke.

Advertising A Link Wheel

Increasing your link wheel is possible if you narrow in on a certain 2.0 website and blogger, and have other websites that link to your wheel. Once you do this, you can advertise the link wheel to all of the leading search engines in order to increase your rankings. Although a link wheel is considered to be a white hat strategy, people still debate as to whether that is true or not. There are several great ways to market your link wheel: every page you have can be socially bookmarked, ping make RSS feeds, and submit to a wide array of directories to receive a back link to your link wheel. However, if all of this puts you out of your element, you can hire an expert to complete your link wheel project.

Utilizing Web 2.0 for Search Engine Optimization Advertising

Written by admin on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 in SEO, Search Engines.

Using the web 2.0 to assist in Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, marketing needs creates backlinks that are targeted.  It all boils down to how effective your on page and off page Search Engine Optimization actually is.  We will not delve far into the subject of SEO itself; we will just give you some practical advice.  The following several tips can be used by anyone to better optimize their website for search engines.

On Page SEO

Before embarking on your ad campaign, you need to already have keywords and phrases that relate to your niche.  Your predominant keyword needs to be placed in your title; for example, SEO for beginners.  Keywords should also be included in your H1 tag and below your meta tag.  Also, put secondary keywords inside your H2 tag.  Do not concern yourself with any other keyword placement for the time being.  Just work on having a 2% to 5% keyword density in your content, but do not overuse your keywords; it can be unnatural and create a negative effect.  Making your premier keyword bold a couple of times and underlining it once can be extremely helpful too.

Include a video related to your subject matter; this is crucial to marketing and optimizing your website for search engines.  Since the current generation of people would rather watch something than read, Google puts a lot of stock into video content.  Do not forget your image alt tag; include your keywords.  And, if your video does not have one, make it yourself.  In addition, pictures can be used to help people understand who you are as a business owner and what your website is all about.  Let’s face it, text-only pages are out, and graphically appealing websites are in, unless your graphics use flash.  Make sure your keywords go into these alt image tags too.

Off Page SEO

We are now traveling head first into the new way of SEO marketing: sharing videos, audio files, and pictures.  All of these things have jump started the web 2.0.  So, if you are unsure, take a look at Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube.  Before you begin, there are a few things that you need to understand about SEO marketing and how it relates to the myriad of “what are you doing this second, let’s network” communities.  Web 2.0 has put a brand new spin on how people search, display content, and read.

This is why everybody should tweak their SEO marketing strategies to get traffic from these types of websites, so they can have a high rank on your searched keywords.  In other words, make web 2.0 characteristics rank high because this is what appeals to Google.  If you do this, you will see your website move up to the top spots.

The following will tell you how to utilize SEO and advertsing to get better placement on Google.  First, you need to find web 2.0 places, such as Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogsome, Wetpaint, and Weebly.  Other excellent sites are ones that utilize platforms of WordPress MU and open source.  Google really likes these types of websites.  This is one way to make search engine optimization easy.

Also, a technique that is too often overlooked is receiving focused backlinks that go to your site.  Consider the benefits of having backlinks that go to your targeted keywords instead of a URL.  To do so, you must create keywords using the web 2.0 sites that focus on your niche; this appeals to Google.  Having a site that is Google friendly will include: content with proper keyword density, properties of the web 2.0, video, pictures, on page SEO, social bookmarks, and hyperlinks that include your keywords.

The most important off page SEO feature you need to focus on is backlinks from top PR websites.  These backlinks can be displayed as reviews, pictures, and videos that utilize action keywords with hyperlinks.

This article might not sit well with old school SEO marketing experts because they would rather implement old, familiar strategies; however, SEO techniques that run parallel with today’s search engine optimization will leave your competition in the dust.  You will rank higher and receive more traffic, which will allow you to make more profits.

Ways to Improve your Google PageRank

Written by admin on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 in SEO, Search Engines.

google-pagerankYou may not know this, but Google PageRank was developed by Larry Page of Stanford University when he and Sergey Brin were developing a new search engine. That search engine became Google, the most used search engine ever. PageRank is a patented method to measure page relevance and importance. The scale goes from 0 to 10, with 10 being best. It should not be confused with “high rankings” because it is a Google link analysis algorithm.

The equations used in the PageRank algorithm are kept secret, but there are a few things known about it that can help you increase your Google PageRank.

Traffic matters, so do what you can to get more visitors and more page views for your site.

A Google sitemap helps. A hastily or poorly made sitemap can hurt your PageRank.

Contents of the individual pages generate better PageRank karma when they are relevant. In other words, if your website is about women’s shoes, you should add pages about shoe outlets, shoe care products, shoe repair, etc. But a perfume page would be considered irrelevant.

The older the site, the better, but newer content helps out. So, an established site that is updated frequently is best.

Outbound links from your site to other highly ranked sites that are relevant – meaning they share at least one search term – helps your page out.

Links from sites with high Google PageRanks are very beneficial for your site.

Links from sites with domain extensions .org and .edu are helpful to your PageRank

Sites that show up in the top 10 results for local map searches for some reason are more likely to appear at the top of “regular” search results, too.

Don’t use link farms. If the algorithm finds out, it will hurt your PageRank.

Sites that use devious techniques including spamming links can not only hurt your PageRank, but can get you banned from Google searches.

Perhaps the most important thing is that the size of your site, and the density of high quality content will help you in the long term more than anything.

While you shouldn’t gear every word you put on your site toward maximizing your PageRank (particularly since nobody has found a way to do that), you should keep these principles in mind because even regardless of PageRank, they are signs of a high quality site.

The SEO Strategies that Immediately Boost Rankings

Written by admin on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 in SEO, Search Engines.

next_srbI make my income by boosting rankings on search engines, and believe me, there are tons of faulty information about SEO. There is a road to achieving high rankings, and it is within your reach. Rankings are not a fabricated myth. Just like any other thing you conquer in life, there is a path you take to get there.

Through my collaboration with several hundred small to medium sized websites, I learned that the high ranking sites have several common denominators. What do they have in common? Well, I am going to tell you exactly what they share with each other. My guide will explain what keeps a website on the top of Google’s list, and what causes a website to sink.

First of all, there are the anchor texts that go to the outside links of your website. Most search engines, including Google, use these anchor texts to figure out the subject of your website, and to decide what ranking to put your site in. Check out the other websites that have links to yours, so you can see if the link is using keywords from your own anchor text. If there is only a URL to link to your website, request that they update. You need your link to be side by side with your keywords.

The second tip to remember is to use your keywords in your title tag and your meta tags. Yes, meta tags still effect search engine rankings. Although meta tags do not carry a lot of weight in reference to your rank, they are a useful tool for page categorization. They also assist search engines by showing them what they will find when they crawl your pages.

The third strategy: link popularity. Website owners and marketers constantly talk about the effectiveness of link popularity. Even though it does not do as much Page Rank, it is still an important method to keep in mind. Both of these concepts take several points into consideration when concluding the value of your web page from an outside point of view. Remember, the amount and value of your links that deliver people to your web page is of the utmost importance.

The variety of domains that lead to your website. This is the next tip. It is not just the links you have going to your website, but that the links are spread out among a wide array of websites. This tells search engines that your website is popular; therefore, the search engine will give it a higher ranking in search results. So, direct most of your attention to spreading out your incoming links.

Now, for the very last strategy, using keywords in a root domain. Sure, you can utilize sub-domains and dedicated pages to put keywords in your URL, but having keywords inside your root domain is the best way to improve your website ranking.

Everything I have laid out for you in this guide is crucial in getting top search engine rankings. Not a single point should be put aside in your quest to climbing the search engine ladder. Also, keep researching so you can stay current with the ever changing SEO trends. Taking a SEO class will aid you in developing your skills as a search engine optimization expert.

Yahoo partners with Google

Written by admin on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 in Search Engines.

Internet Giants Google team up with Yahoo, after Microsoft takeover attempt fails. Yahoo has hired Internet search leader Google to sell online ads, and hoping to boosting its profit.

The California based company announced the plans this Thursday. Yahoo stock went down 10% on news that its effort to revive takeover talks with Microsoft had failed.

Yahoo using Googles superior advertising technology, Yahoo hopes it will boost its yearly cash flow by $250 million to $450 million in the first year deal.

This partnership could last up to 10 years, if its approved.

Search Engine Optimization – Tips

Written by admin on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 in Search Engines.

Search engine optimization is a process whereby a website or web page is modified in such a way as to drive traffic from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and various others to the particular website or web page. Search engines are typically used by most people to look for specific information on the Web. These targeted words are used by search engines to deliver a list of specific results to the searcher. The higher up in the list a site appears, the more likely it is that the searcher will visit it. Therefore it is in the interest of the site owner that the site is optimized as far as possible.

Most search engines use what are known as “crawlers” to find the pages that match the keywords being searched for. During the search process the found pages are indexed, and hence, delivering results for searches on keywords that have already been searched for is very fast. If you are a webmaster or a website owner, here are some tips that may help you optimize your site to get a higher ranking.

Find an effective keyword. It is no use concentrating on keywords which are not likely to be searched for. There are SEO Tools available on the Internet that can help you find a good keyword, i.e. a keyword that is being searched for a lot.

Optimize the Title tags on every page of your website. This is very effective as part of the strategy used by search engines is to store and display them in the search results. The Title should not be very long as then it is likely to be truncated in the search result, and it must also be relevant to the contents of the page. It is also important to ensure that your keyword appears in the beginning of the title.

You would also need to optimize the META tags. The most relevant ones are robots, content-type, description and keywords. Typically the Title tag comes between the content-type and description tags. The robots tag instructs crawlers or robots whether to search the entire site or leave out specific directories. The content-type tag helps search engines categorize the page.

The description tag contains the text that is displayed under the title in the search engine listing. Here again the keyword plays an important part. The description should not be more than about 150 characters. The keywords tag has, of late, become less significant than it used to be, but some search engines still use it. These days, search engines have become more aware of spamming techniques (ways to artificially increase your ranking), and it would be unwise to repeat a keyword too many times.

A site map page is very useful, as it contains links to all the pages on your website. This helps crawlers index your site more fully.

There are many other aspects to optimize your site but these are the bare essentials.

Keyword Density

Written by admin on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 in Search Engines.

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:

  • Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.
  • Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.
  • Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.
  • When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.
  • Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

How Do Search Engines Work – Web Crawlers

Written by admin on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 in Search Engines.

It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. Hence it is better to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the customer initiating a search.

There are basically two types of search engines. The first is by robots called crawlers or spiders.

Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site’s Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so don’t create a site with 500 pages!

The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine.

A spider is almost like a book where it contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.

Example: Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Google.

When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.

One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page, but it can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. Then the algorithms analyze the way that pages link to other pages in the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about, if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.

Yahoo buys ad network for $300 million

Written by admin on Sunday, September 9th, 2007 in Search Engines.

Yahoo Inc has struck a deal to buy BlueLithium, the fifth-largest U.S. online advertising network, for $300 million in cash, in the latest move to consolidate the behavioral ad targeting market. BlueLithium is a three-year-old company that specializes in the fast-growing market for technology that tracks consumer behavior as users move from site to site in order to deliver more relevant ads.

The deal, announced on Tuesday, bolsters Yahoo’s existing behavioral ad targeting efforts with its 250 million-strong base of Yahoo Mail users and Yahoo Travel, an analyst said.
BlueLithium is an invitation-only network of roughly 1,000 sites that adds to Yahoo’s growing ad network. Besides Yahoo’s own properties such as news, sports and travel, other parts include the Yahoo Publisher Network of affiliated sites and Right Media Exchange, which reaches a wider range of sites.

BlueLithium, a venture capital-backed company based in San Jose, California, serves up ads to 145 million unique visitors a month, the companies said, citing data from online measurement firm comScore Inc. It is number five among U.S. online ad networks and the second-largest in Britain. “This really gives us the ability to (deliver) more relevant advertising to consumers not only on the Yahoo network but also off the network,” Todd Teresi, senior vice president of the Yahoo Publisher Network, said in a phone interview.

The deal comes a little over a month after Time Warner Inc’s AOL LLC unit said it would buy Tacoda Inc, paying $275 million in cash, according to a source close to the deal.
Both companies use so-called cookie technology, small data files that record the Web surfing habits of different types of consumers, allowing advertisers to target more specific types of ads based on different types of audience demographics.

By tracking consumer behavior over time, such ad networks allow Web sites to deliver fewer, more relevant ads to reach audiences than older online advertising approaches that track behavior on a single site or based on keyword search terms.

Evercore Partners Inc served as financial adviser to BlueLithium on the deal.



Site Navigation