Posted by:
admin
| Comments
Image via Wikipedia
Anyone who has developed a website hoping to quickly achieve a high ranking in the search engines, especially Google, has probably discovered that the task is much more daunting than they originally thought. That is because new websites and even existing websites must prove to Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines that they are worthy of being ranked high.
There are many factors involved in getting a website ranked high in the search engines, including good, relevant content that gives visitors the information they are searching for along with strong link popularity.
What Exactly is Link Popularity?
Many people think link popularity equates to the number of incoming links a website has linking to it. In other words, how many other websites are linking to your website.
But, link popularity is much more than just the number of incoming links you have coming to your website. Factors can include, but are not limited to, the quality and type of website linking to you, whether you link back to that website or not, the reputation of the website linking to you, and if it appears that you paid for the link or not. And Google has just made the distinction between quality links vs. non-quality links even more pronounced with their latest algorithm update.
On a very simplistic level, a website’s link popularity is designed to increase as the number of other websites linking to your website increases. Google’s original inspiration with this concept was based on the fact that Google believes if other websites were linking to your website, you must have something good to link to. In other words, others are giving your website a vote of confidence.
However, as in all aspects of Search Engine Marketing, website owners and SEO specialists found ways to manipulate Google’s Page Rank (Google’s indicator of your link popularity.) Many website owners actively seek other websites that will “exchange” a link with them. “If you link to me, I’ll link to you.” So many times the links are completely irrelevant to the content on the two sites. The reciprocal link arrangements are simply established in order to try to increase their link popularity and thereby their Google Page Rank. There have been entire businesses built on helping websites exchange links with each other to boost their Google Page Rank.
Of course Google is not blind to this manipulation of their algorithm. So it goes without saying that they would eventually figure out a way to help stop, or at least minimize the abuse of their link popularity approach to ranking websites.
How Does this Affect My Site?
Google has adjusted and refined their Page Rank algorithm many times in the last few years. After the latest algorithm update you can pretty much count on your reciprocal links being discounted or completely ignored. Links that have been “bought” on other websites have also been discounted, so I wouldn’t bother spending the money if someone tries to sell you a link on their website to link back to your website. (The main exceptions to this statement are quality directories that charge to be submitted and added to their directory. Most quality directories are normally worth the money they charge due to the benefits you receive from the directory listing.)
“Run of the site” links are also being discounted or ignored by Google. Those are links that someone puts on every page of their site to your website to make it appear that there are a lot of pages linking to your site. Again, you’re better off just having one link to your site from a page that does not have a lot of other outgoing links on it as opposed to having a link from every page on another person’s website.
Get Quality Incoming Links
So how can you increase your link popularity and thereby your Google Page Rank? You’ll need to do it the old fashioned way – by developing a website that people want to visit and link to. Of course, there are also some good opportunities to help people (and Google) find your website so they can have the opportunity to find out just how good it is. Press releases, articles, and quality directories all provide excellent opportunities for strong incoming links to your website.
If your press release catches others attention, you can receive some strong incoming links each time you submit a newsworthy item. Just make sure you really have something to talk about in your press release or it will be ignored.
Articles help to not only build quality content on your site, but you can submit your articles to a variety of article directories that allow others to find what you have written and link to your site as an expert on a particular subject.
Quality directories not only provide good links back to your site but they can also land you a high ranking in a search engine results page. There have been many instances where a website may not be listed on the first page of Google for a search, but the directory listing for that website is listed on the first page. Having that high ranking in the directory is certainly better than no ranking at all! In the end, it’s all about bringing visitors to your website when they are searching for your products for services. And directories can help bring you that traffic.
So, bottom line, you can help boost the rankings of your website through good, quality content coupled with a strong link popularity which you can obtain naturally through your online press releases, articles and quality directory submissions. It takes time for a website to build a good reputation in the search engines, but the long-term benefits are worth the time and effort. Trying to achieve high rankings through questionable practices and shortcuts can work for a while but it will almost always come back to haunt you once your tactics are discovered by the search engines and your site is penalized or removed.
About the Author: Matthew James is an Internet Marketing expert with over 6 years of experience in search engine optimization, pay-per-click services, keyword research, quality link building concepts, and website marketing strategies. He currently works as an Internet Marketing Analyst at Xcellimark, a top Internet Marketing firm in Orlando, Florida.
Posted by:
admin
| Comments
On Page Factors – Is Your Website Search Engine Friendly?
So you have a website but where is it on Google? Have you fallen foul of a penalty or have you overlooked one of the many common search engine optimization pitfalls when designing your site?
Understanding what works for the search engines and what doesn’t when it comes to the content on your website can have a crucial impact on the relevance and/or page rank of your pages from a SEO perspective.
Here we highlight common mistakes that could affect your ranking on Google and other search engines.
Optimizing for the Correct Keywords
Basically ‘Get real’ about what keywords you feel your website can be ranked for. If you have a ten page website in a highly competitive market then ranking naturally for the major terms will be close to impossible.
Use the Overture keyword tool together with the number of results on Google to find out what keywords are searched for and how many other websites are targeting them. If you are lucky then you might even find a popular keyword that not many other websites are optimized for. Alternatively a good tool for this job is Wordtracker from Rivergold Associates Ltd.
Code Validation
If your html code is not valid, then this could make it very difficult or even impossible for a search engine to separate your page content from your code. If the search engine cannot see your content, then your page will obviously have no relevance.
Frames
Even though most, if not all, major search engines now index frames and even with the use of the NOFRAMES tag, you run the risk of your pages being displayed in the search engine results out of context. As each individual page is indexed separately, it is likely that your website visitors will not see your pages within your frame and will effectively be stuck on the page they arrive at.
If you must use frames then create a ‘Home’ link on each of your individual content pages and point the link at your frameset index page.
JavaScrïpt Navigation
If you use JavaScrïpt to control your website navigation, then search engine spiders may have problems crawling your site. If you must use JavaScrïpt, then there are two options available to you:
• Use the NOSCRIPT tag to replicate the JavaScrïpt link in standard HTML.
• Replicate your JavaScrïpt links as standard HTML links in the footer of your page.
Flash Content Currently only Google can index Macromedia Flash files, how much or how little content they see is open to debate. So until search engine technology is able to handle your .swf as standard it would be advisable to avoid the use of these.
Again if you must use Flash then offer a standard HTML alternative within NOEMBED tags.
Dynamic URLs
Although Google and Yahoo are able to crawl complicated URLs it is still advisable to keep your URLs simple and avoid the use of long query strings. Do not include session IDs in the URL as these can either create a ‘spider trap’ where the spider indexes the page over and over again or, at worst, your pages will not get indexed at all.
If you do need to include parameters in the URL, then limit them to two and the number of characters per parameter to ten or less.
The best SEO solution for dynamic URLs is to use Mod-rewrite or Multiviews on Apache.
No Sitemap
A sitemap is the search engine optimization tool of choice to ensure every page within your website is indexed by all search engines. You should link to your site map from, at least, your homepage but preferably from every page on your website.
If your website contains hundreds of pages then split the sitemap into several categorized maps and link these all together. Try and keep the number of links per page on a sitemap to less than 100.
Excessive Links
Excessive links on a given page (Google recommends having no more than 100) can lower its relevance and, although it does not result in a ban, this does nothing for your search engine optimization strategy.
Be Careful Who You Link To
As you have no control over who links to your website, incoming links will not harm your rank. However, outbound links from your website to ‘bad neighbourhoods’ like link farms will harm your ranking.
As a rule ensure as many of your outbound links as possible link to websites that are topical to your field of business.
About The Author
John Hill – Developer, Designer and SEO Professional with E-Gain New Media offering website design, search engine optimization and PPC Management.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=fe3285d5-bdd3-4119-a43a-e9ba60d91ad1)
