Archive for Tips and Advice
Seven Often-Missed SEO Opportunities
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If you have good content and present it in a reasonable way, then you have an excellent chance of achieving good positions in search engine queries for your main keywords and keyword phrases. You don’t have to resort to any trickery to get your site noticed. However, many web designers and web masters fail to take advantage of opportunities to get high search engine rankings by mishandling a few crucial components of their web pages. Here is a list of the seven most frequently missed search engine optimization opportunities:
1. You’ve Got to Display Your Text as Text!
This sounds elementary, but it is not. Many designers want their site to look good and replace headlines with gif images. The headlines (or headers) are one of the most important elements on any printed page. If you want to know what a magazine article is all about, then you just have to glance at the headline and the sub-headings to get a good idea. Similarly, search engines place great importance on headers, which are usually marked with the html codes <H1> <H2> or <H3>. If you are selling blue widgets and want to be found in the search engines by people who make the query “blue widgets” then you should put these words in a text headline, properly marked, at the top of your page.
Some website building programs often render entire paragraphs of text as images. A person viewing such a page will be able to read it, but a search engine’s robot will not see the text. So, chëck your web pages, and if vital text is being replaced by graphic images, then it is better to substitute the images with text.
2. Put a Good Amount of Text on Your Pages
It’s not just headlines that count, body text is also needed. It’s true that a picture is often worth 1000 words, but following this strategy is not good when it comes to search engine optimization. If your page is about blue widgets, then an opening headline saying “Get the Best Blue Widgets from the ACME Widget Company” is a good start, and a picture of a blue widget would be OK, but why stop there?
People come to the web looking for information. They come to find a solution to their problem or to find something that will benefit them in some way. If it takes you a few paragraphs or even a whole page to explain all the benefits that your widgets offer, then by all means add that text to your page. It will help your users, and in the process you will be repeating your keywords and phrases again which in turn will tell the search engines that this page is truly about blue widgets. So, more text is good for search engine recognition and for the end users alike.
3. Don’t Use the Same Title Tags on All the Pages
Title tags are even more important than headlines in letting the search engines understand what your web page is all about. The title tag is displayed as the first line of text in the blue row at the top of the browsing window. The code for the tag is in the <head> section of the html document and is labeled <title></title>.
Normally you will want your site to rank well for a variety of phrases and keywords. You can’t stuff all of these keywords and search phrases in one headline or in one title tag. It will cause “indigestion” for both your viewers and for the search engines. A better strategy is to organize your website into different pages, with each page emphasizing a certain aspect of your activity.
In fact, most websites are built this way. But the problem is that instead of emphasizing the unique aspect of each particular page with a properly crafted title tag, many websites repeat the same tag on all the inner pages. This is truly a missed opportuníty to get ranking for a large number of different keyword phrases. So, don’t miss this one: make a separate title tag for each of your pages.
4. Don’t Try to Do Your Branding in the Title Tag
Unless you are already well known it makes no sense to overly emphasize your company name in the title tag. People are not searching for the XYWZ MP3 Player Company. They are searching for MP3 players. The first words in a title tag are the most important. If you are Coca-Cola, then maybe it makes sense to have these as the first words, but if you are yet-to-be-famous then it makes more sense to put your most important keywords and keyword phrases in the forefront of your title tags. Your company’s logo at the top of the pages can do the branding for you, but leave the title tag for the more important task of being found in search engine queries. You can consult my previous article “How to Write Title Tags“, for more suggestions.
5. Your Link Structure Should Be Easy for Search Engines to Follow
Even if you have great text and well-written headlines and a unique title tag on each of your pages, it will not do you that much good if all of your pages are not indexed by the search engines. Normally a search engine robot will visit one of your pages and then look for more links and if it finds those links it will visit those pages and add them to the search engine’s data base or index. If your links are easy to follow then all of your inner pages will end up in the search engine index and will be displayed when they match queries made by searchers.
Some site navigation structures are not search-engine friendly. Links found in java-script, which is used in many drop-down menus, may not be followed by the robots. Similarly, links on image maps (particular segments of graphic images) may also be missed by the robots.
The best way to make sure that your links are followed by the robots is to make a simple text navigation menu at the bottom of your pages. This kind of navigation bar can supplement your drop down menu or other navigation system and it has multiple benefits. It helps the search engines follow the links, and it reminds your users, as they reach the bottom of the page, where they can go next. On top of that, it helps you with opportuníty number 6.
6. Use Your Site’s “Anchor” Text to Your Advantage
Just as the title tags and headlines give a good indication about the content of your pages, so do the descriptive words in the internal links on your website. The clickable portion of a site’s text links are known as “anchor text.” Instead of having all of your anchor text read “Clíck Here,” find a way to put the words “mp3 Player,” “Blue Widgets,” “Illinois Real Estate” or whatever your keywords are in the text links of your site.
Once again this works to the advantage of your readers as well as giving the search engines better information about the content of your pages. The more descriptive your text links are, the better they are for your users. In fact, one of the best methods of site navigation is to refer to the relevant pages of your site from within the text on your page, linking to the pages using descriptive keywords.
7. Use Keywords in Your File Names
Instead of naming your files as if they didn’t matter, such as page1.html, page2.html, put your keywords and keyword phrases in your file names. If you do a search on Google for any particular item, you will see that wherever your search keyword appears it is listed in the Google results in bold text. Usually you will see this bold text in the title that is displayed, and in the descriptive text that Google displays underneath the title. You will also see it in the URL. If you already have some of your keywords in your domain name, then that is helpful. But even if you don’t, you can still make file names such as www.xyzwcompany/blue-widgets.html .
Do the keywords have to be separated by hyphens? Once again if you look at Google results you will see keywords in file names are displayed as bold text even if they are part of a longer stream of text. This is a process known as stemming, where the search engine can recognize keywords within longer text blocks. Still, I personally like to use hyphens just to make sure!
So, chëck your web pages and do whatever you can to help both search engines and your end users enjoy and benefit from their contact with your web pages. Take advantage of these seven SEO opportunities to improve your site’s perförmance.
About The Author
Donald Nelson is a search engine optimization specialist. His SEO company A1-Optimization provides affordable search engine optimization, website copywriting, article marketing and other web promotion services.
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Domain Stop Words, Duplicate Web Sites, & Increasing Article Backlinks
Posted by: | CommentsThree SEO questions are answered in this Q&A article:
- Do search engines ignore stop words in domain names?
- I created a duplicate website to target my services to a different state. My intention is not to dupe Google but I don’t know what else to do. How would you approach this?
- What can I do to increase the number of backlinks I am getting from articles?
Question 1) “I know search engines ignore stop words in meta tags and title tags. Do search engines ignore stop or common words in domain names? Example www.therealestate.com or www.arealestate.com” – Corey M.
Answer: Yes, to the degree in which the keywords have any effect the more common words within a domain name would be ignored. It is, however, important to keep in mind that search engines only place a limited amount of weight on keywords in a domain name. In my opinion the only time where a site keyword within a domain name wins a ranking war is when all other elements are equal between you and near-ranked competitor.
Additional Info: I like to do my due diligence before answering any question because frankly I need to be sure the rules have not changed overnight. Here are a couple links to pages that relate to this question:
- WebmasterWorld Posting (membership required)
- What are stop words? by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch.
Question 2) “Hi Ross – I just finished reading your blog… “SEO Answers #7: What Determines Duplicate Content SPAM?” and I have a question for you. Allow me to give you a little background: One of my clients has expanded their business into another state with a different name, but it is ultimately the same business. In order to develop a Web presence for this new, duplicate company in a new area, we created a second Website that has its own unique design, etc, but is ultimately a take off on the original site, using the same content, just minor differences to allow for the new name, geographic area, etc. The original site is optimized and of course contains the original content. The duplicate site is not optimized. In no way is our intention to “dupe” anything, but will this cause problems with the engines? We are not trying to get mileage off of the content by duplicating it… this is simply a second company that offers the same services, just in a different state. Each site is in its own domain and has its own URL. Your input? Your suggestions for a different solution? Thanks for your time.”
Answer: Simply put if you are truly not looking to get any mileage out of the content then you do not want rankings for it which implies that the site should be blocked to the search engines. I would recommend using your robots.txt file to block the spiders entirely to that website so you do not negatively affect your rankings on the original site. The fact is that duplicate content, good intentions or not, is frowned upon by the search engines and you are gambling by having the site available for spidering.
If, however, you do want the search engines to spider the content then you must rewrite it to avoid duplicate content penalties.
As a final note I would like to pose a question; did your client absolutely have to create a secondary website? In many cases I find that a client need not have created a second site; they just needed to add a new section to their site to manage the new target marketplace. The other option, which may have been appropriate in this case, is to add a subdomain to enjoy the benefits of a secondary home page on a pre-branded domain and fresh marketable URL; nearly the same benefits of having a secondary domain without the headache of marketing an entirely new website. Even in this case, however, you would not be able to use duplicate content so you would be faced with the same issues; either rewrite the content or block it from spiders.
Question 3)“Ross, in an attempt to improve my ranking in the search engines, I have been writing articles for article directories in the hopes of receiving quality backlinks. Recently I came across a site mypagerank.net, which I decided to check on my link popularity. The result indicated that I only had 18 backlinks. What can I do to increase the number of backlinks I am getting? I would have expected more as I have written many more articles and submitted my URL to many directories. Thanks, enjoy reading your articles” – Peter
Answer: First, good work making the effort to write articles, they are an excellent medium for promotion and I commend you for dedicating the time to writing. I certainly understand the significant commitment to time and research required to write usable content. Fortunately, there are a few techniques that may help you squeeze some extra benefits from your hard work:
1. Be Clear – Request Credit
Are you being very clear to those republishing your content that you expect a linked credit for the copy? Simply stating that you allow syndication but request credit laid out in a particular linked format will do wonders. At StepForth we clearly request credit and we occasionally troll Google looking for those who have republished our content without credit; it is usually a simple matter to have the content removed or the appropriate link added. Hence, if you see this article does not give credit and provide a link to StepForth.com then please drop me a note, ross@stepforth.com 
2. Pick a Powerful, Timely Topic
Have you noticed a topic coming up regularly in forums? Perhaps a question that appears to be asked regularly? This is usually a good indication that an article discussing the topic would do well. Remember that many of the syndication networks online are looking for topics that will get readers and ultimately provide impressions for their advertisers. As a result, picking a hot topic will make a world of difference in how widely your article will get picked up.
3. Optimize the Title
The title of your article needs to clearly relay the topic and should engage readers and editors alike. The title can make or break a story if it is too vague or boring.
4. Refer to Your Own Content
It helps to provide inline links from your article to relevant previous articles or pages on your website. With practice and once you have built up a healthy reservoir of linkable articles it will soon be second nature to refer to links in a manner that is crucial to the article; so that editors note that the backlinks are relevant and play a legitimate role in the purpose of the article. Legitimacy of backlinks is crucial to make the ‘cut’ because editors are more likely to remove a link than keep one if it appears merely promotional.
5. Give Praise Where it is Due
Within an article don’t be afraid to link to other sources where you have noted particularly good information, particularly other small business blogs. The fact is that some bloggers take a real shine to those who syndicate or give credit to their content and may just link back to you in thanks.
6. Put RSS On Your Site
If you have not already done so ensure that your articles are syndicated on your website in RSS format as well. This can be easily accomplished by using a blog to publish your articles because most blog systems include automated feed creation. Many of the article syndication networks use articles solely through RSS. So as soon as you get a RSS feed you should go out and tell the world about it. Try using Google and search for ” submit feed ” or ” add blog ” and you are certain to find some great sites to submit your syndication feed.
There is a lot more information on this topic so I will provide some links that should help you further:
- Article Writing Tips – excellent resource I stumbled accross
- Related forum thread in SEO Chat
- Related forum thread in digital Point
After all this work is done, keep in mind not every proper (credited) use of your article will deliver the benefits of a backlink. The search engines are frankly too smart to give credit to every article link because of the obvious duplication and the unfortunate proliferation of article scraping sites (sites that republish articles to try and make their sites appear authoritative). That said, the links acquired from truly authoritative sites would pay off as backlinks and hopefully with the more important benefit – direct traffic.
As a final note remember that articles are meant for human consumption so be sure to proofread your work and ensure that the topic is either timely or originally written enough to be useful. I am not saying this applies to you, however, it is important that the quality of the content is high enough to merit wide spread syndication.
About The Author
Ross Dunn is the founder and CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. Ross is a search engine optimization and placement expert with over 9 years of marketing experience and is a Certified Internet Marketing and Business Strategist (CIMBS). Blending his experience in the art of web design and search engine optimization, Ross offers a unique and informed perspective on obtaining top search engine placements. Ross can be reached at ross@stepforth.com.
