SEO Fundamentals

January 6, 2010 · Posted in Optimization (SEO · Comment 

To feature your website on top of every important search engine, it is vital that you learn the various Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tricks that can ensure that your website or blog beats the hundreds of thousands of other websites posted on the internet. Here are some valuable tips and strategies on learning how to SEO.

The first tip is to understand the manner in which search engines work.  They do not understand graphics.  They depend on matching the words in the search criteria with the keywords that might be present in your website.  Therefore, it will be necessary that you include many keywords and key phrases as you can into your website.  Imagine the different key phrases that your viewers might type into the search textbox and try to incorporate them into your site.  Even if you included photos in your site, make it a point to attach text tags to those photos so that the search engines can understand them.

Your key phrases should also be mentioned in the url and other related file names.  This is what the search engines are looking for.  The title tag, which is located at the top of your website should contain relevant key phrases as should the meta description tags.  The description tags will not be seen in your website, but will be featured in text form when the search engine displays your results.  Therefore, it is important to include phrases that entice the readers towards your website in your description tags.
 
Although it is important to remember not to just dump the same keywords and phrases in your URL, title and description tags and your file names since most search engines will interpret that as spamming and just reject your site.  Instead, try to incorporate various related keywords and key phrases that are similar to your keywords.

It is also a good idea to check your standing after conducting some dummy searches through various search engines.  This will give you a chance to fine-tune your keywords and key phrases. During this search, try to find out what the standing is of your competitors and try to analyze the reason for their success in case they are placed above you.  You should also ensure that your site’s internal links are crossed-linked perfectly since search engines will find it easy to latch on to the right page.  Another important tip is to continually add fresh content to your website since this will please both search engines and even your visitors.  The chances of your website getting bookmarked will also increase if you keep on providing fresh information.

Once you have made the necessary changes to your website, patience is key.  It will still take some time for search engines to recognize that fact and push you up the search engine ladder.

Make sure that you body copy is curtailed to around 300 words and that your keywords and key phrases are injected at regular intervals instead of bunching them at the top or bottom.

If you remember these tips and if you make all the necessary changes to your website, while waiting patiently, you will be pleasantly surprised to watch the search engines lock to your site during any related search.  Try out various new methods to ensure that your site remains on top since your competitors too will be doing the best to jump over you.

Lawren Smith graduated with a degree in math and computers, worked many years as as Sr. Software Engineer and Technical Lead on large, multi-million dollar projects. Now she is an entrepreneur who owns a marketing and real estate invesment companies. She is a leader who, can teach you many marketing strategies. To Find out more on Search Engines visit: LawrenSmith.com blog, or Search Engine Optimization.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/seo-fundamentals-1674494.html

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Top 10 Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tips

October 10, 2009 · Posted in Optimization (SEO · Comment 

1. Title Tag

A page title is the first thing that search engines look at to see what the page is about. Its important to make it relevant, include a few keywords but don’t over do it, and give each page a different title. Otherwise users won’t be able to distinguish pages, and this hinders bookmarking.

2. Meta Tags

There are 2 main meta tags Keywords and Description. Some search engines actually ignore keywords due sites over using it, but it’s still a good idea to put some keyword in. It’s debatable whether the description actually helps your ranking but it’s very important as it shows up in search engines. This should read as a sentence and should be a brief introduction into your company /site.

3. Heading Tags

These help search engines and your users find out what your site it about, and saves them reading information they are not interested in. Your most important title should be the biggest heading (H1) and then sub titles can be placed in smaller headings (H2, H3).

4. Alt tags on Images

Putting Alt tags on your images is now essential. It gives you a chance to feed extra information to search engines and you need them on all images to make your site validate as xhtml transitional. These tags will allow the visually impaired to know what is on your site.

5. Title Attributes

These are the little pop-ups that appear when you hover over something like a link or an image. This is a little tip that can really help your ratings. A good example would be to have a link that says “contact us” , you could insert a title “contact one of our sales assistants” – it actually describes what the link is.

6. Content

Make sure that your content is relevant to the page and to you keywords. It is important to incorporate your keywords into your content but it should also read well and actually make sense. It’s not good to stick as many keywords in as possible and have content that doesn’t make sense – this won’t get you anywhere.

7. Link Building

There are many factors that effect your ranking but links are a huge factor. Try to get as many links to your site as possible but only from reputable sites that have something to do with your site. Don’t join link farms, search engines will actually rate you down if you use these.

8. Social Media

This technically isn’t SEO but it’s very important when thinking about promoting your site. Millions of people use things like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace every day so its important to utilise these services, especially as they are free.

9. Sitemap

This can either by a sitemap that helps your users navigate through your site, or an XML one that is used by search engines to index your site. This will help search engines find your site easier, and you can create one free using Google’s webmaster tools.

10. Things to avoid

The main 2 to avoid are Flash and Splash pages. Flash sites may look nice but search engines cant read them, so lots of people won’t be able to find your site. Splash pages just create an extra click for users, which annoys a lot of people – myself included. Often people use the 2 together, forcing the user to either skip intro – meaning you’ve wasted all that money on flash for nothing, or to leave your site completely – you’ve just lost a potential customer (me included).

If you would like help optimising your website then you can contact me at info@triggersolutions.co.uk ot visit my website – Trigger Solutions – Brighton Based Web Design Agency www.triggersolutions.co.uk

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/top-10-search-engine-optimisation-seo-tips-1320416.html

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Onpage SEO, the best way to Boost your Webtraffic

September 28, 2009 · Posted in Optimization (SEO · Comment 

Many marketers are too busy following the herd in the stampede for traffic that all their time is taken up building links.  They are forgetting that the on page factors are vital in SEO.

These are quite simple for you to do and are something that should be fundamental when you create a new site.  An ideal SEO friendly platform is WordPress.

The first step is for you to ensure you have set your title tag correctly.  This has to be no longer than 64 characters.  Any longer and it will be shortened and this will look very funny in the search engine listings.

The title tag needs to tell people what your site is about in such a way to entice them in to your website.  It really should include a keyword that is specific for the page the title tag is on.  All the pages on your site should have a title tag specific to it.  You must not use the same title tag on every page.

Next are your meta keywords and meta description.  These inform the search engine spiders about the content of your site.  These are not overly relevant to the search engines as the majority of them analyze your site to determine what it is about.

These are of importance if you are using Adsense as if you don’t use these meta tags, you will discover your Adsense ads are not targeted to your niche.

The meta description is helpful because it appears in the search engine rankings.  In this 150 characters you have to get people to click on your website.  This sentence must be enticing and to the point.

Your meta keywords and description should also be unique for each page within your site.

All graphics on your website have what is known as ALT tags.  These tags provide an alternative description for the visually impaired. These are looked at by the search engines and can get your images ranking well.  Make sure you don’t assign the same keyword to too many ALT tags and add the word graphic, picture, image or something like it after the keyword.  This is yet another indicator to the search engines that your webpage is related for those keywords.

Your header 1 or H1 tag needs to also include your main keyword.  This is another indicator to the search engines that your site is important for that keyword.

Your site will rank well if you use your keyword and related keywords in the body of each page.

Just don’t try and squeeze too many keywords on to a single page as you may get yourself dropped by the search engines.

By performing some simple on page SEO optimization you can gain the advantage in the search engines.  Not all marketers do this and so this could give you the edge over your competition!

There are some other very effective tactics to attract more Traffic to your website beside onpage SEO, I highly recommend the Classifield Marketing Tactics package, revealing three highly effective Traffic generation tactics and the Free Traffic System, this system enables you to build massive backlinks and a steady stream of traffic to your website!

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/onpage-seo-the-best-way-to-boost-your-webtraffic-1274957.html

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The Role of Title Tags in Your Organic SEO Results

September 26, 2009 · Posted in Optimization (SEO · Comment 

Undoubtedly it’s very helpful to have unique title tags for your search engine rankings. Search engine optimization experts all agree that title tags are the most important on-page SEO factors that require to be optimized. One very important feature of a successful title tag is its uniqueness. At this article, I will explain this point as one of several SEO Tips you need to know for your site.

Don’t Use Your Company’s Name as Your Title Tag for All Pages!

I hope your website isn’t one of those sites that has the same title tag for all its pages: your company name! If so, do something about it today. The fact is that we have more than one page at our sites/blogs, because the content of each page is different. So, if the content is different, the title tags must be different.

The title of each page is that page’s topic and represents the content written in it. How could all pages of a website have the same content? For the same very reason, title tags should vary.

It could be OK when you use your company’s name for some pages to make it unique! You may wonder what I mean by this. Here’s an example: every website could have privacy policy, but Company X should choose a title tags like the one below for its “Privacy Policy” page:

Company X’s Privacy Policy

What makes this title tag unique is the name of company. This is an exceptional case, but I still would say that using your company’s name as the only phrase at your title tags isn’t a wise decision.

Avoid General Repetitive Title Tags

It’s been observed over and over again that some websites are using titles like:

O Homepage
O About Us
O Contact Us
O Services
O …

Such title tags cannot be called unique as many sites/blogs have got exactly the same wordings in their title tags. As you can see, these are the titles that could represent similar pages in all websites. Here’s the question: what is different about your “About Us” page?

For instance, you can change it to “Contact X for relocation in San Diego!” This helps your website keyword “relocation in San Diego” as well. On the other hand, if your site visitors find your page in search engines and enter your site from this page, they will know what you offer.

It should also be noted that implementing this practice will help you increase search engine ranking as well.

Avoid Using the Same Site Key Phrases at All Title Tags

Some may think it’s a good on-page SEO practice to use the same keywords for all the pages of the website. I think it is a harmful practice for your site, because it is a type of spamming search engines. Your descriptive title tags should reflect the unique content of that page, not the keyphrase of the site. When a site visitor lands in a page, she wants to know about that page. Your page content and navigation menu should introduce the site’s main topic to her.

Site Booster helps you increase search engine rankings of your site either by its SEO services or providing free SEO tips at its blog. Visit: http://www.site-booster.com.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/the-role-of-title-tags-in-your-organic-seo-results-1273023.html

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