1. You use the default WordPress theme.
It’s not illegal or anything, but using the default WordPress theme shows the sort of laziness generally displayed by MFA spammers with dirty, dirty splogs. Because they buy up hundreds of domains that do nothing but scrape content and slap on some AdWords, they don’t care what the pages actually look like. In fact, they want to be so unattractive that people want to click on ads just to get away from the ugliness. You’re not a dirty splogger? Congratulate yourself for not being sleazy! Then kick yourself for not taking more pride in your website, and take five minutes to find and install a free WordPress theme that doesn’t suck.
2. Too. Many. Ads.
Okay, I can’t fault you for wanting to monetize your website. My own sites are monetized. But seriously, when you have more ads than content, you put the MFA sites to shame. And people like me might be looking extra hard to make sure you have some sort of valuable content that separates you from the real spammers. It’s a fine line, so you have to be very careful you don’t cross it and actually become a spam site.
3. The spammiest-domain-in-the-world.com
You can have a beautiful website that is easy to navigate and is very user friendly, but people may not ever get there if they see you’ve got five keywords in your domain name separated by hyphens. Sure, hyphens are not inherently evil. But too many hyphens makes you look cheap and untrustworthy. And that’s before you even get off the SERP. Just don’t do it. If the good non-spammy keyword rich domain names are taken, then find a brandable domain name. (Think Zillow. Expedia.)
4. Link Pages
You may call it your “resource page.” How many of those are resources are affiliate links or reciprocal links you traded back in 2003? Link pages tend to be suspect even if you’re really just trying to give your visitors a list of resources for which you receive no form of compensation. It’s really looks better to make your links contextual, interwoven throughout your site content. If you absolutely must have a link page, you need to be absolutely sure it has real value for your users, relevant to your site content.
5. You don’t look “real.”
Do you have an About Us page? Contact page? Copyright notice? Privacy policy? If you sell stuff, do you have a shopping cart? Customer service information? Shipping info? If you don’t, you look suspiciously like a thin affiliate site.
6. Too many redirects.
It’s good to use a redirect when you shake up your site navigation, so that users following otherwise dead incoming links can be led to the new home of the proper landing page. But have you ever clicked on a link and seen more than three URLs switch out in the address bar before ending up on an actual page? If you’ve moved things around several times, you need to tidy up your redirects, or else people (your competitors, who are going to be trigger happy on the spam report button) might wonder what you were cloaking and hiding on those interim pages that never loaded.
7. You bought the .info
It’s unfair, but so many spammers have bought up the .info domains that it’s truly unusual to find a legitimate .info page. That’s all I have to say about that.
8. Your title tags look like
Your title tag should be readable. You can be descriptive without a comma separated list of your targeted keywords. The title tag is what people see on the SERP. Make it user friendly. A list of keywords is not user friendly. You look like you have nothing better to offer than a list of keywords, and that’s not good. Pick a keyword phrase or two and put it in sentence form.
9. Barely unique content
As the head of the WBP writing team, it makes me sad to see barely unique content out there. The less-evil cousin of the MFA site doesn’t scrape content from other sources. The articles you read there will pass Copyscape. Why? Because they paid someone (likely overseas) a dollar or two to re-write someone else’s content to become “unique,” even when the resulting rephrasing leads to some awkward reading. So okay, they may pass a cursory plagiarism test, but these sites have a “look,” very similar to the default WP theme sites.
10. RSS Feeds
If you have a web page essentially one big blog or news feed, you have the burden of proof that says your feed is valuable to users. If you have ads on that feed, you may not be able to avoid the spam label for scraping. Make sure you add value to the feed by adding some form of narrative or editorial. You need to provide some kind of unique content, or else you’re no better than the sploggers.
11. Sales letter sites
You’ve got this AMAZING product with PROVEN results and TRUSTED testimonials. See the pictures of these happy customers? You have a LIMITED TIME offer to get the SPECIAL price. You use lots of BOLD TEXT in PRETTY COLORS to drive the point home. Users have to scroll down the page for 45 seconds to find the obligatory lead generator contact form where they must provide their email address to LEARN MORE. Affiliate site? Legitimate offer? You be the judge, but it sure looks like spam to me.
Read More..
Showing posts with label website analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label website analysis. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Search Trends To Watch In 2009
Between the economy affecting stock prices and the potential mergers and acquisitions discussed among several of the major search engines, there is a lot of uncertainty as we head into 2009. Yet we can anticipate several shifts in search based on what we've seen over the past decade and other signs in the media ecosystem. Here are some major changes to anticipate:
Holistic -- In Every Sense
The word "holistic" should play out in a number of ways:
First, any significant media campaign or offline event drives search volume, so marketers must capture that demand by integrating search with other media planning.
Next, paid search and SEO should be planned in tandem for the best results. Several studies show that by integrating search engine marketing with search engine optimization, results are greater than the sum of its parts.
Lastly, expect the major search engines and others to push forward with new ways to infuse paid search listings with display and video media. This will make search also about engagement and not just clicks and conversions. To some degree, these new search engine offerings will be motivated by more concentrated efforts to attract large brand marketers . Additionally, given how effective search engine marketing is, the engines and portals will want to have a steady stream of upsell options. In the coming year, consumers may experience the most dramatic shift in the format of search engine results pages since the basic template was established roughly a decade ago.
Search Fragmentation
While the search engine landscape continues to be dominated by one player, new complexities keep emerging as search migrates far beyond the traditional engines.
This fall, comScore and Ad Age reported that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second-largest search engine; within days, YouTube announced its new search advertising platform. What's more, MySpace (563 million U.S. queries in October 2008, according to comScore) is a bigger search engine than both AOL (424 million) and Ask.com (362 million). Queries on eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon combined (980 million) nearly rival MSN.com (1.04 billion).
What does all of this mean for marketers?
It's true that not all queries are created equally. A searcher on a social network or video sharing site often wants something different than what they’re looking for on a standard search engine. But given the volume of consumer search activity (among other interactions) on these nontraditional search sources, it's important for marketers to be positioned the best way possible where those searches are happening.
New Models for SEO
These other search sources don't just operate in a vacuum; they impact the major search engines, too. Search engine optimization is shifting, from a focus of entirely maximizing a site's rank in the engines, to maximizing a site's reach across all the top-ranked listings on a search engine's results page. While many consumers go directly to a marketers' site, which should be positioned as prominently as possible in search engine results pages, many more consumers reach marketers through intermediary properties. These include blogs, social networks, photo sharing sites, Twitter, Wikipedia, and countless other social sites that tend to rank increasingly well in search engines. That means marketers have to shift their mindset from optimizing their Web site to optimizing their Web presence.
Your Car Engine's Your Search Engine
The biggest change in 2009 and beyond is that the device consumers search from will start to matter even more than which engine they use.
The most obvious manifestation of this is mobile consumption. New mobile devices and platforms such as the iPhone and Google Android are focused on improving the search and Web experience. This will fuel searches from mobile devices; iPhone users enter a disproportionate number of mobile search queries, though other devices are catching up.
Marketers need to adapt their strategies to reach their target audiences on these devices, such as by optimizing messaging and landing pages, and providing more consumer value by leveraging the unique features of these devices. For instance, mobile devices support integration with SMS (text messaging), click-to-call, mobile couponing, and location-based services, all of which take advantage of the mobile platform in ways that aren't as natural for PC-based Web advertising.
Read More..
Holistic -- In Every Sense
The word "holistic" should play out in a number of ways:
First, any significant media campaign or offline event drives search volume, so marketers must capture that demand by integrating search with other media planning.
Next, paid search and SEO should be planned in tandem for the best results. Several studies show that by integrating search engine marketing with search engine optimization, results are greater than the sum of its parts.
Lastly, expect the major search engines and others to push forward with new ways to infuse paid search listings with display and video media. This will make search also about engagement and not just clicks and conversions. To some degree, these new search engine offerings will be motivated by more concentrated efforts to attract large brand marketers . Additionally, given how effective search engine marketing is, the engines and portals will want to have a steady stream of upsell options. In the coming year, consumers may experience the most dramatic shift in the format of search engine results pages since the basic template was established roughly a decade ago.
Search Fragmentation
While the search engine landscape continues to be dominated by one player, new complexities keep emerging as search migrates far beyond the traditional engines.
This fall, comScore and Ad Age reported that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second-largest search engine; within days, YouTube announced its new search advertising platform. What's more, MySpace (563 million U.S. queries in October 2008, according to comScore) is a bigger search engine than both AOL (424 million) and Ask.com (362 million). Queries on eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon combined (980 million) nearly rival MSN.com (1.04 billion).
What does all of this mean for marketers?
It's true that not all queries are created equally. A searcher on a social network or video sharing site often wants something different than what they’re looking for on a standard search engine. But given the volume of consumer search activity (among other interactions) on these nontraditional search sources, it's important for marketers to be positioned the best way possible where those searches are happening.
New Models for SEO
These other search sources don't just operate in a vacuum; they impact the major search engines, too. Search engine optimization is shifting, from a focus of entirely maximizing a site's rank in the engines, to maximizing a site's reach across all the top-ranked listings on a search engine's results page. While many consumers go directly to a marketers' site, which should be positioned as prominently as possible in search engine results pages, many more consumers reach marketers through intermediary properties. These include blogs, social networks, photo sharing sites, Twitter, Wikipedia, and countless other social sites that tend to rank increasingly well in search engines. That means marketers have to shift their mindset from optimizing their Web site to optimizing their Web presence.
Your Car Engine's Your Search Engine
The biggest change in 2009 and beyond is that the device consumers search from will start to matter even more than which engine they use.
The most obvious manifestation of this is mobile consumption. New mobile devices and platforms such as the iPhone and Google Android are focused on improving the search and Web experience. This will fuel searches from mobile devices; iPhone users enter a disproportionate number of mobile search queries, though other devices are catching up.
Marketers need to adapt their strategies to reach their target audiences on these devices, such as by optimizing messaging and landing pages, and providing more consumer value by leveraging the unique features of these devices. For instance, mobile devices support integration with SMS (text messaging), click-to-call, mobile couponing, and location-based services, all of which take advantage of the mobile platform in ways that aren't as natural for PC-based Web advertising.
Read More..
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
10 SEO Rules for Blog And Web Designers
Rule One: Stick to Your Keywords
Pick a few keywords or phrases that describe your site. Use them, and
words related to them, whenever it’s natural to do so. Repeating them
uselessly is no good (rule Zero), use them in sentences, headlines,
and links.
Rule Two: Content is King
Users don’t search for design, they search for content. If your site
doesn’t have content people want, no one will look at it.
Every page on your site should follow the Inverted Pyramid. Each page
should lead with a relevant H1 tag with one of your keywords, and the
first paragraph of text should be a summary of the rest of the page.
Rule Three: Clean Code is Searchable Code
Build your sites in a text editor, and write clean, human-readable
HTML. The HTML should follow the conceptual structure of the page,
navigation first, followed by the H1 tag, then the first paragraph,
etc. Try to use descriptive tags when possible. Use UL for lists, P
for paragraphs, H tags for heads and subheads, and STRONG for bolded
text. Don’t overuse Divs.
Your site can still be artistic and cool, that’s what CSS is for.
Rule Four: The Home Page is the Most Important Page
Your home page is the key to your site being found by search engines.
It should summarize the rest of the site, and give a clear, compelling
reason for a user to look at the other pages in the site.
Rule Five: Links Have Meaning
Search engines pay a lot of attention to the links on your site, and
the words used in those links. Never use “click here” or “see more”
for a link. The link text should describe where the link will take the
user, such as “more examples of CSS web design” or “learn how we can
improve your SEO.”
The more relevant the links on a page, the more findable the page
becomes. Don’t go overboard, and don’t link to anything irrelevant. If
your page is focused on minimalist web design, a link to the Design
MeltDown page on minimalism will boost your SEO. A link to a hilarious
picture of a cat will not.
Rule Six: Title Tags for the Win
Every page in your site should have a title with the site name and a
short description of the page. About 60 letters total. Include a
keyword. Remember that the page title is what appears in search
results, it should give users a clear reason to click on it.
Your navigation links should have title attributes that match the
titles of your pages. It’s a small thing, but it will give you a
significant SEO improvement.
Rule Seven: Alt Tags Matter
Every image on your site should have an alt tag. Especially images
that are relevant to the page. If your page is focused on CSS tricks,
labelling a screenshot “example of rounded CSS corners” will improve
your page’s findability. Labelling it “screenshot” or “image” will do
the opposite.
Rule Eight: Ignore Most Meta Tags
A long time ago meta tags were the secret to SEO. Those days are gone.
The only meta tag that really matters now is the description tag.
Search engines may use it to provide the text under the link to your
page in their results. Make sure it describes the page in a way that
explains why a user searching for your content would want to look at
your page.
Rule Nine: Have a Site Map
Make sure you have a site map. This is an xml file that describes the
structure of your page. Make one, and give it to Google.
Rule Ten: Design for Humans
Search engines are designed to find what humans want. That means the
best way to make your site findable is to design it for humans. Your
job as a designer is to solve a problem, not make art, prove a point,
serve your ego or break a boundry. In this case, your problem is to
provide your users with a site that is easy to use and full of what
they’re looking for. If you can do that, the search engines will find
you.
Read More...
Pick a few keywords or phrases that describe your site. Use them, and
words related to them, whenever it’s natural to do so. Repeating them
uselessly is no good (rule Zero), use them in sentences, headlines,
and links.
Rule Two: Content is King
Users don’t search for design, they search for content. If your site
doesn’t have content people want, no one will look at it.
Every page on your site should follow the Inverted Pyramid. Each page
should lead with a relevant H1 tag with one of your keywords, and the
first paragraph of text should be a summary of the rest of the page.
Rule Three: Clean Code is Searchable Code
Build your sites in a text editor, and write clean, human-readable
HTML. The HTML should follow the conceptual structure of the page,
navigation first, followed by the H1 tag, then the first paragraph,
etc. Try to use descriptive tags when possible. Use UL for lists, P
for paragraphs, H tags for heads and subheads, and STRONG for bolded
text. Don’t overuse Divs.
Your site can still be artistic and cool, that’s what CSS is for.
Rule Four: The Home Page is the Most Important Page
Your home page is the key to your site being found by search engines.
It should summarize the rest of the site, and give a clear, compelling
reason for a user to look at the other pages in the site.
Rule Five: Links Have Meaning
Search engines pay a lot of attention to the links on your site, and
the words used in those links. Never use “click here” or “see more”
for a link. The link text should describe where the link will take the
user, such as “more examples of CSS web design” or “learn how we can
improve your SEO.”
The more relevant the links on a page, the more findable the page
becomes. Don’t go overboard, and don’t link to anything irrelevant. If
your page is focused on minimalist web design, a link to the Design
MeltDown page on minimalism will boost your SEO. A link to a hilarious
picture of a cat will not.
Rule Six: Title Tags for the Win
Every page in your site should have a title with the site name and a
short description of the page. About 60 letters total. Include a
keyword. Remember that the page title is what appears in search
results, it should give users a clear reason to click on it.
Your navigation links should have title attributes that match the
titles of your pages. It’s a small thing, but it will give you a
significant SEO improvement.
Rule Seven: Alt Tags Matter
Every image on your site should have an alt tag. Especially images
that are relevant to the page. If your page is focused on CSS tricks,
labelling a screenshot “example of rounded CSS corners” will improve
your page’s findability. Labelling it “screenshot” or “image” will do
the opposite.
Rule Eight: Ignore Most Meta Tags
A long time ago meta tags were the secret to SEO. Those days are gone.
The only meta tag that really matters now is the description tag.
Search engines may use it to provide the text under the link to your
page in their results. Make sure it describes the page in a way that
explains why a user searching for your content would want to look at
your page.
Rule Nine: Have a Site Map
Make sure you have a site map. This is an xml file that describes the
structure of your page. Make one, and give it to Google.
Rule Ten: Design for Humans
Search engines are designed to find what humans want. That means the
best way to make your site findable is to design it for humans. Your
job as a designer is to solve a problem, not make art, prove a point,
serve your ego or break a boundry. In this case, your problem is to
provide your users with a site that is easy to use and full of what
they’re looking for. If you can do that, the search engines will find
you.
Read More...
SEO for Your WordPress Blog
The best thing about blogs is that they are naturally optimized for search engines. Pages are well linked. Content is fresh, due to the ease of posting. And search engines are automatically notified when new content has been added. However, given the number of other blogs on the web, many of which may be in direct competition with your blog, it is important to further optimize your blog to maximize and maintain search engine visibility.
Here are some tips and plugins to help you get the job done.
Tip #1: Stuffing Ain’t Only For Thanksgiving!
It is very important to do a bit of keyword stuffing. This means that keywords should be in your titles, your meta tags, and the content of your article. And while you do not want to overdo it, a healthy smattering of keywords will improve the likelihood that you will rank highly for them.
Tip #2: Take Advantage of Pretty Permalinks
By default, the link structure for WordPress websites is pretty ugly. Links, for example, generally contain question marks, ampersands, and numbers. Fortunately, WordPress has supplied an easy workaround. The link structure or permalink structure can be easily modified.
For maximum search engine optimization, we suggest a custom permalink structure which includes the name of the post. This way, you have one more place to stuff keywords.
For information on customizing your permalink structure see Using Permalinks in the WordPress Codex.
Tip #3: Don’t Create Orphans
Inlinks, as pointed out by Ajith, is a key point of search engine optimization. So when you create a post, don’t forget about it. Instead, be sure to create links between it and other posts of similar subject matter.
Tip #4: Choose Plugins With Care
All plugins are not created equal. Some, for example, insert a lot of useless markup within the source code of your blog. This can negatively affect your blog’s SEO. But there are some good SEO plugins which we suggest. These include:
- All-in-One SEO Pack. Enables you to create and manage your titles and meta tags for each page or post.
- Seo Slugs. Helps optimize your urls so that they only contain meaningful keywords.
- Nofollow Case By Case. Allows you to hold on to your pagerank by helping you selectively set nofollow links.
Tip #5: Don’t Let the Dust Settle
Blogs are meant to be updated regularly. By not doing this, you might find yourself losing search engine placement and traffic.
Read More...
Here are some tips and plugins to help you get the job done.
Tip #1: Stuffing Ain’t Only For Thanksgiving!
It is very important to do a bit of keyword stuffing. This means that keywords should be in your titles, your meta tags, and the content of your article. And while you do not want to overdo it, a healthy smattering of keywords will improve the likelihood that you will rank highly for them.
Tip #2: Take Advantage of Pretty Permalinks
By default, the link structure for WordPress websites is pretty ugly. Links, for example, generally contain question marks, ampersands, and numbers. Fortunately, WordPress has supplied an easy workaround. The link structure or permalink structure can be easily modified.
For maximum search engine optimization, we suggest a custom permalink structure which includes the name of the post. This way, you have one more place to stuff keywords.
For information on customizing your permalink structure see Using Permalinks in the WordPress Codex.
Tip #3: Don’t Create Orphans
Inlinks, as pointed out by Ajith, is a key point of search engine optimization. So when you create a post, don’t forget about it. Instead, be sure to create links between it and other posts of similar subject matter.
Tip #4: Choose Plugins With Care
All plugins are not created equal. Some, for example, insert a lot of useless markup within the source code of your blog. This can negatively affect your blog’s SEO. But there are some good SEO plugins which we suggest. These include:
- All-in-One SEO Pack. Enables you to create and manage your titles and meta tags for each page or post.
- Seo Slugs. Helps optimize your urls so that they only contain meaningful keywords.
- Nofollow Case By Case. Allows you to hold on to your pagerank by helping you selectively set nofollow links.
Tip #5: Don’t Let the Dust Settle
Blogs are meant to be updated regularly. By not doing this, you might find yourself losing search engine placement and traffic.
Read More...
Monday, December 15, 2008
Optimizing Images on Your Site
Images are a part of any good web site, but they can hurt you in the search engine rankings if they're not set up correctly. Also, you may have already noticed that you do not have to do an image search to pull up images in your search results. Images are becoming part of the normal search results on all of the search engines. Make sure your site is ready to rank with these important tips about optimizing the images on your web site.
File Name: The first step to optimizing the images on your site is to check the file names. Many, you may find, are titled things like "pic 1", "2.gif" or "3.jpg". You can rename the images so that the file names are actually descriptive of the image details. Avoid generic names that confuse search engine spiders and users alike.
Alt Attribute: Many people have security settings on their browsers to inhibit the display of images for one reason or another. Some may be to protect them from sites they do not trust while others do it just to increase their internet speed. The alt attribute is a message that displays in place of the image if it is blocked from view. The alt attribute should tell what the image is about. This message is also the anchor text for clickable images.
Clickable Images: Keep clickable images to a minimum. They can be confusing to search engines, especially if they are the only means of navigating around the site. This goes for images or graphics such as drop-down menus that are used for navigation. Use plain, organized text for navigation.
Robot blocked images: A lot of older sites and some of the newer ones with unaware webmasters are set up with the images blocked by their robots.txt files. These are useful for keeping certain things from being crawled and indexed on your site, but now that images are becoming important to search engine rankings, you may want to move your images to a new folder where they are not blocked from being ranked. Having your images all in one place helps the search engines to index them, as well.
You can use Web Analytics or Google Website Optimizer to see which image changes will do your site the most good. Since images are becoming more and more important on the search engines, you may want to work with a search engine marketing company to keep your images up to date.
Read More...
File Name: The first step to optimizing the images on your site is to check the file names. Many, you may find, are titled things like "pic 1", "2.gif" or "3.jpg". You can rename the images so that the file names are actually descriptive of the image details. Avoid generic names that confuse search engine spiders and users alike.
Alt Attribute: Many people have security settings on their browsers to inhibit the display of images for one reason or another. Some may be to protect them from sites they do not trust while others do it just to increase their internet speed. The alt attribute is a message that displays in place of the image if it is blocked from view. The alt attribute should tell what the image is about. This message is also the anchor text for clickable images.
Clickable Images: Keep clickable images to a minimum. They can be confusing to search engines, especially if they are the only means of navigating around the site. This goes for images or graphics such as drop-down menus that are used for navigation. Use plain, organized text for navigation.
Robot blocked images: A lot of older sites and some of the newer ones with unaware webmasters are set up with the images blocked by their robots.txt files. These are useful for keeping certain things from being crawled and indexed on your site, but now that images are becoming important to search engine rankings, you may want to move your images to a new folder where they are not blocked from being ranked. Having your images all in one place helps the search engines to index them, as well.
You can use Web Analytics or Google Website Optimizer to see which image changes will do your site the most good. Since images are becoming more and more important on the search engines, you may want to work with a search engine marketing company to keep your images up to date.
Read More...
Friday, November 28, 2008
Google Search Wiki Move Your Results on Search Results
Google released new feature called Search Wiki, which lets users move search results, delete search results, comment, and rate. The feature is now default for all users with Google account and currently there is no way to opt out.
Where Did Search Wiki Come From?
The original project goes back to Google Labs, where Google experimented with “Digg” style search results.The project was at least 5 months in testing when Wikipedia’s “Wikia search” rolled out, with all the features Google is offering with their upgrade. Wikia Search did not get any real market share, but their idea of editable search results was apparently something that Google saw as a form of threat.
Though there’s no way to prove that Google was motivated by Wikipedia to roll out its own version of Search Wiki, I believe it had some influence, along with social media . The Diggs, Reddits, Sphinns and alike have been quite successful, so it makes sense to try this on the massive scale in search. Plus the benefits of success are worth the try.
SEO Impacts
- As you move pages up and down, Google shows how many people deleted the page, moved it up, moved it down, and commented on results. Over months, assuming percentage of people vote, Google can use this data in relevancy computation and partially rearrange default search results.
- Personalized search + vote = more power? Google knows our interests very well, especially if you use more than Google search (reader, gmail, etc). If it possible for Google to count votes for pages related to their interested more than those of user who does not have any search history on the topic?
- Reviews - according to “local search ranking factors” article, reviews play a big role in local rankings for local queries like hotels, restaurants and travel. Is it possible for a site with more reviews to be valued more than those without?
- If the feature is to stick, and actually find wide spread usage (we can’t guess), user experience will play bigger role in search engine optimization. Sites with killer content (tech crunch, search engine land) high usability and with optimized user flow will win, because they will be able to retain users, solve their problem, inform, teach and help them accomplish their task.
The Negatives
- The big downside is that many people unfamiliar with this feature will simply play around deleting results, moving them up/down, creating some noise. Google most likely considered this and may not count 10 first votes from a new user (wild guess, but makes sense to me)
- SPAM - how long before auto bots start creating Google accounts (capcha can be easily passed), and moving results, commenting, adding pages and just spamming search results? Spammers are very innovative, so expect to see some fun technologies develop in the next few months that take advantage of Search Wiki.
Read More..
Where Did Search Wiki Come From?
The original project goes back to Google Labs, where Google experimented with “Digg” style search results.The project was at least 5 months in testing when Wikipedia’s “Wikia search” rolled out, with all the features Google is offering with their upgrade. Wikia Search did not get any real market share, but their idea of editable search results was apparently something that Google saw as a form of threat.
Though there’s no way to prove that Google was motivated by Wikipedia to roll out its own version of Search Wiki, I believe it had some influence, along with social media . The Diggs, Reddits, Sphinns and alike have been quite successful, so it makes sense to try this on the massive scale in search. Plus the benefits of success are worth the try.
SEO Impacts
- As you move pages up and down, Google shows how many people deleted the page, moved it up, moved it down, and commented on results. Over months, assuming percentage of people vote, Google can use this data in relevancy computation and partially rearrange default search results.
- Personalized search + vote = more power? Google knows our interests very well, especially if you use more than Google search (reader, gmail, etc). If it possible for Google to count votes for pages related to their interested more than those of user who does not have any search history on the topic?
- Reviews - according to “local search ranking factors” article, reviews play a big role in local rankings for local queries like hotels, restaurants and travel. Is it possible for a site with more reviews to be valued more than those without?
- If the feature is to stick, and actually find wide spread usage (we can’t guess), user experience will play bigger role in search engine optimization. Sites with killer content (tech crunch, search engine land) high usability and with optimized user flow will win, because they will be able to retain users, solve their problem, inform, teach and help them accomplish their task.
The Negatives
- The big downside is that many people unfamiliar with this feature will simply play around deleting results, moving them up/down, creating some noise. Google most likely considered this and may not count 10 first votes from a new user (wild guess, but makes sense to me)
- SPAM - how long before auto bots start creating Google accounts (capcha can be easily passed), and moving results, commenting, adding pages and just spamming search results? Spammers are very innovative, so expect to see some fun technologies develop in the next few months that take advantage of Search Wiki.
Read More..
Friday, November 14, 2008
Google’s SEO Starter Guide
Google’s PDF titled “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” includes basic tips for making sites more accessible to search engines. This 22 page document focuses on a variety of topics ranging from the creation of unique title elements to more advanced issues like navigation and redirects.
While none of Google’s “secret sauce” is revealed within its pages, the Google guide to SEO does provide a number of interesting tips for webmasters who are new to search. Included in the Guide are Google’s best practices for title elements, meta tags, URL structure, navigation, content, anchor text, headers, images and robots.txt. In addition, Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide provides a list of additional resources provided free from Google.
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While none of Google’s “secret sauce” is revealed within its pages, the Google guide to SEO does provide a number of interesting tips for webmasters who are new to search. Included in the Guide are Google’s best practices for title elements, meta tags, URL structure, navigation, content, anchor text, headers, images and robots.txt. In addition, Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide provides a list of additional resources provided free from Google.
Read More..
Thursday, November 13, 2008
SEO Web Site for Yahoo and MSN
• Good SEO Practices must be adapted.
• Discover what the search engine is searching for and optimization should be done accordingly.
We must pay attention for the 30-40 percent of other search engine market , like Yahoo and MSN. Yahoo and MSN search engines are similar in their difference with the Google search engine.
On-page factors:
MSN and Yahoo offer more importance to on-page seo web design and optimization than Google.
• Keyword number: Yahoo and MSN give more significance to the keyword number in a page than Google. The keyword density standard for Yahoo and MSN are much higher than the other search engine like Google. You should not do over the keyword density. 3%of keyword density is perfect.
• Keyword phrases must be used in the content with variations in phrases.
• Title Tags: The Title Tag includes the keyword phrase in the beginning. There is no need to write the name of the website at the title tag of every page. Just include the primary keyword phrase for the first page, following your name.
• Meta Tags: Google search engine stay away from Meta Tags but Yahoo and MSN do consider them.
• Keywords tag: It is recommended to use15 keyword phrases which are within the content and to avoid keyword spamming. MSN and Yahoo will punish for keyword spamming.
• Description tag is quite significance for Google search engine.
• Content tags (H1, H2, bullets, italics, bold) In Google, use the primary keyword phrase in H1 tags You can also use H2 and H3 tags. Keyphase can be used in italics and bold.
• Clean code: Clean code is one of the most important features of Yahoo and MSN. Your website code is clean and W3 compliant.
• Internal linking: Internal Linking plays major role in Yahoo and MSN whereas Google pays less attention to Internal Linking.
Offpage factors:
MSN and Yahoo have given significance to the number of incoming link, anchor text, but the degree on thematic link is not close to Google. Yahoo and MSN have an inclination towards the Google’s affinity with domain and the website link-aging.
Read More..
• Discover what the search engine is searching for and optimization should be done accordingly.
We must pay attention for the 30-40 percent of other search engine market , like Yahoo and MSN. Yahoo and MSN search engines are similar in their difference with the Google search engine.
On-page factors:
MSN and Yahoo offer more importance to on-page seo web design and optimization than Google.
• Keyword number: Yahoo and MSN give more significance to the keyword number in a page than Google. The keyword density standard for Yahoo and MSN are much higher than the other search engine like Google. You should not do over the keyword density. 3%of keyword density is perfect.
• Keyword phrases must be used in the content with variations in phrases.
• Title Tags: The Title Tag includes the keyword phrase in the beginning. There is no need to write the name of the website at the title tag of every page. Just include the primary keyword phrase for the first page, following your name.
• Meta Tags: Google search engine stay away from Meta Tags but Yahoo and MSN do consider them.
• Keywords tag: It is recommended to use15 keyword phrases which are within the content and to avoid keyword spamming. MSN and Yahoo will punish for keyword spamming.
• Description tag is quite significance for Google search engine.
• Content tags (H1, H2, bullets, italics, bold) In Google, use the primary keyword phrase in H1 tags You can also use H2 and H3 tags. Keyphase can be used in italics and bold.
• Clean code: Clean code is one of the most important features of Yahoo and MSN. Your website code is clean and W3 compliant.
• Internal linking: Internal Linking plays major role in Yahoo and MSN whereas Google pays less attention to Internal Linking.
Offpage factors:
MSN and Yahoo have given significance to the number of incoming link, anchor text, but the degree on thematic link is not close to Google. Yahoo and MSN have an inclination towards the Google’s affinity with domain and the website link-aging.
Read More..
Monday, November 3, 2008
How SEO can help you combat recession ?
There is a severe economic downturn which cannot be denied. As small business owner it is very essential to be totally prepared to hold the fort and ride this downturn with effective strategies for survival and growth.
Besides following the commonly given away practical advises such as decreasing your debt, decreasing your expenses; increasing your savings and practicing frugality in your business and personal life I would advise to capitalize from your existing customers and convert maximum of prospects into customers. They can definitely ensure your survival. If you’re running a traditional set-up with not much of technology put to use, you surely need to open up that client directory you used to maintain few years back and start calling up them and promote your services with some healthy discounts.
If you own a good website, you should surely launch some good promotional offers that can help convert your prospects into business. You would also need a good marketing plan as whatever your blowout offer may be; it’s no use if you do not have sufficient website visitors to read about it.
Check out for Search Engine Optimization program. It’s the right antidote needed to get your internet marketing done within a small web marketing budget.
Read More..
Besides following the commonly given away practical advises such as decreasing your debt, decreasing your expenses; increasing your savings and practicing frugality in your business and personal life I would advise to capitalize from your existing customers and convert maximum of prospects into customers. They can definitely ensure your survival. If you’re running a traditional set-up with not much of technology put to use, you surely need to open up that client directory you used to maintain few years back and start calling up them and promote your services with some healthy discounts.
If you own a good website, you should surely launch some good promotional offers that can help convert your prospects into business. You would also need a good marketing plan as whatever your blowout offer may be; it’s no use if you do not have sufficient website visitors to read about it.
Check out for Search Engine Optimization program. It’s the right antidote needed to get your internet marketing done within a small web marketing budget.
Read More..
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Increase your Pagerank or PR
There appears to be no definite guidelines or goals on how to build backlinks and increasing your PR but their results are the same on whatever guide or pattern you make, you gain more traffic and that affects your PR.
There are 3 key methods among the several methods that I am currently applying on my sites to increase the traffic and PR.
1. I recently joined digital point to gain more knowledge on SEO and how to run an effective forum. This is one informative forum on SEO, and at the same time it encourages you to post, you can add signatures on your profile after 7 days of being a member and have atleast 10 post. 4 signatures can be added which is a rich method of backlinking to your website. The more post you generate the better the backlinks to your website.
2. If you are running a blog, you see spam comments on your post all the time which are generic post or generated by bots. Concept is commenting on blogs allows backlinking, so try to converse with the poster when you comment to generate a discussion instead of just appearing spamming the post for backlinks. Comment on blogs with the same niche as yours or with high PR can bring you not only traffic but also high PR.
3. The other method you can try to increase your PR is submitting to link directories, there are 3 types, paid submission, reciprocal link and free submission. Some link directories have a higher PR. Do not link to link farms for this could lessen your PR instead of helping.
Read More..
There are 3 key methods among the several methods that I am currently applying on my sites to increase the traffic and PR.
1. I recently joined digital point to gain more knowledge on SEO and how to run an effective forum. This is one informative forum on SEO, and at the same time it encourages you to post, you can add signatures on your profile after 7 days of being a member and have atleast 10 post. 4 signatures can be added which is a rich method of backlinking to your website. The more post you generate the better the backlinks to your website.
2. If you are running a blog, you see spam comments on your post all the time which are generic post or generated by bots. Concept is commenting on blogs allows backlinking, so try to converse with the poster when you comment to generate a discussion instead of just appearing spamming the post for backlinks. Comment on blogs with the same niche as yours or with high PR can bring you not only traffic but also high PR.
3. The other method you can try to increase your PR is submitting to link directories, there are 3 types, paid submission, reciprocal link and free submission. Some link directories have a higher PR. Do not link to link farms for this could lessen your PR instead of helping.
Read More..
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