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Posts tagged Yahoo
Search Engine Optimization – Simple Yet Effective Tips
Jan 30th
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the act of altering a web site so that it does well in the organic, crawler-based listings of search engines.” More simply, SEO is the process of altering a website so that it ranks highly in the search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo!, MSN) when someone (your customer) searches for a word or a specific phrase as it relates to your site or your business.
SEO has many benefits. The most important benefit is having a website that works. After all, it is one thing to have a website – it is another thing to have a website that works. SEO efforts can substantially drive more traffic to your website – thereby helping you spread your message, sell your products or services and increase your revenues.
The following are five things – simplistic, yet effective – that will help with your search engine optimization efforts:
Title Tag - The title tag is one of the first things the search engines see when they crawl your website. It is also one of the most important. Be sure to incorporate relevant, keyword-rich text in the title tag.
Frames and Flash Introductions - Simply put,do not use them. Search Engines have a difficult time reading and interpreting them. Additionally, flash introductions are usually perceived as “annoying” and irrelevant.
Images – Search engines cannot read graphics or images. However, they can read the alt tags. Therefore, make sure you associate alt tags with all your graphics and do not include text as part of your image.
Keywords – Research which keywords people would use to arrive at your website. Obviously, for your site to be deemed more relevant that that of your competitor’s, your page needs to actually use these keywords.
Incoming Links – Having quality incoming links to your website boosts your sites “popularity.” Everything being equal, the site that has more quality incoming links is viewed as a “more important” site than one that doesn’t have quality incoming links. Therefore, that site is also deemed more relevant and will consequently rank higher.
These are just five simple very SEO tips on what you should or shouldn’t do to rank well within the search engines. SEO efforts should not be neglected when developing a website – it can be the difference between just being a website and being a website that works.
Title Tag Optimization For SEO – (Search Engine Optimization)
Jan 8th
In SEO, the title tag is really important and should always be taken care of while you are optimizing your page for search engines. This is because of the reason that search engines give high level of importance to those keywords that are found in the title of a web page. You should always choose that title for your web page that describes your web page’s content in the most descriptive way as possible.
It can be better explained by the example of an library, let’s say you are looking a book for “On page optimization” and while searching for that book in a library you came across a book titled “On page optimization techniques”, You will surely give that book more preference and you will read that once. However there can be many other books in the same library with better content on “on page optimization” but you won’t look on them unless they have good title on them. Similarly in Web pages you should choose those titles that are encouraging enough to make surfer click on the link of your web page.
While choosing title for your web-page, there are few things that should always keep in mind
1) You should always use targeted keywords of your web page in title. Title tag increase the relevance of your web-page, when some one search the web for that keyword.
2) You should always use short and readable title for your web-page. I will recommend you to limit your title tag between 60-70 characters because Google and MSN mostly list titles of around 70 characters including the spaces that are there in title however yahoo lists title of around 120 character. So, it’s a best practice to limit your title length between 60 to 80 characters.
3) You should always use different title tag for your web pages in your website. I have seen many dynamic web sites that have more then 1000 dynamic pages but they all the web pages share same title on them. Only question that arises in my mind after looking on those websites is that
When each page have different content then why same title?.
You should avoid such scenarios and should always use different titles for different pages of your website.
4) You should not use company’s name in your title tag unless you think that company’s name will attract more users. Instead of using company’s name you can use that space for suitable keywords.
5) Do not simply list all the keywords in your title other wise search engines can suspect that as spamming. You should always use keywords in your title but you should make sure that title of your web page is a readable sentence and title properly describes your web page content.
6) You should not use your keyword more then twice in your title. It’s always a best practice to maintain the keyword density of your title between 25-35 percent to get good result.
These were the few things that you should always keep in mind while choosing title of your web page. You should not ignore the importance of title tag as they are the powerful tool and you should take advantage of them. You should optimize your title tag for good search engine optimization.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Dec 30th
Ok, so you’ve submitted your website to the necessary search engines, you type in your keywords, and…ok…it’s not on page 1…2…10….ah! There it is on page …11 ??!! What’s wrong?
What exactly IS Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? According to Webopedia.com, it’s “the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine”, in other words, getting a high Google/Yahoo/ placement.
SEO has two sets of techniques on-page and off-page. On-page is when you do tinker the site itself to optimize it.
On-page optimization usually requires HTML skills, thus it could get really technical. But if you’ve always been inquisitive and you have enough time to learn HTML, it would help you a lot. Make sure that your site has the following qualities:
1. quick loading pages (if it takes forever, you won’t get much repeat visitors)
2. a professional look
3. clear about what it is you offer and what the visitor’s next step should be (such as signing up for a newsletter)
4. provides some pertinent information right on the first page (with no clicking on links required)
Search engines use “spiders” to follow the links around the web, and get content from the web pages they find. Before you get creepy, crawly ideas in your mind, these “spiders” are different from our usual 8-legged friends. They are actually automated robots, and when they follow links they’re “crawling” the web (also called “spidering”), hence, the name.
Off-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the next step you can resort to after dealing with on-page beautification of your site. One cool method is to submit your website to search engines. Many people view this as a very important step in SEO, some even going as far as paying huge amounts to companies that promise to submit their sites to “thousands” of search engines. Before you break the bank, many an experienced programmer has said that you do not need thousands of search engines, but simply the top 5. Submitting your website means filling out a form that is provided by the search engine. For Google, for example, you can submit your site at http://www.google.com/addurl.html, and once its registered, it’s automatically updated. It used to be that this was the basic step in skyrocketing your site’s searchability to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS), and, if you don’t have other websites that link to yours, this step may be necessary, but if you do have other web sites that link to yours, whether or not you submit your site, these guys will find you.
Another step that many webmasters take is article marketing. Web content is what keeps the Internet community go round. Who won’t enjoy reading tips after tips after tips on just about anything in this world. If you can write well, cool! You can save a lot as long as you have the time to provide content for your site. But if you don’t, there’s always SEO writers to help you in that endeavor. Aside from providing quality web content to your site, which is what will keep traffic pouring to your site. Share some of your content to article directories. When other website owners find your content apt for their own site’s, provided that you have a well-written resource box (a concise description of your site and your website’s URL and your name), that should help you boost your site’s search engine placement.
Webmasters have focused on breaking the code of a search engine’s algorithm, which is simply the “formula” a search engine uses to match the websites with the terms being used. Attempts at trying to figure out these algorithms is futile, first of all, because these are not simple formulas, but could contain hundreds of factors, and secondly, they are constantly changing.
There is another dichotomy of SEO with regards to whether the techniques are ethical or not. They are known as white hat techniques and black hat techniques. The techniques mentioned above are “usually” known as white hat techniques. The adverb “usually” was used because when abuse of those techniques is made, they can also turn into black hat techniques, which is what many quality search engines frown upon.
Some focus on “tricks” or what SEO experts call “BlackHat SEO” such as using invisible text (e.g. putting pink text on a pink background), cloaking, which means showing one page to a search engine’s spider and showing a different page to the real visitors, and keyword stuffing, which simply means, cramming every nook and cranny of your website with your keywords. These tricks could “work” for a while, but, on the other hand, could also warrant penalties from the search engines, resulting in either a lower ranking, or altogether being banned.
So, how do you achieve Search Engine Optimization? The key is still your website’s content. Building a high quality site for your readers/customers is the best way to achieve SEO. Build it, and they will come. It sounds simplistic, but it’s true.
Note: This article may be freely reproduced as long as the AUTHOR’S resource box at the bottom of this article is included and all links must be Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.
