search engine optimization

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Problem: “Our site is up, our ads are placed, we’re ready to go. But no one’s coming to our site. What’s going on?”

Solution: It’s called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and it’s what gets your site not just placed in the big search engines like Google and Yahoo, but it gets your site placed well. There are lots of things that can and should be done properly to your pages that your average web designer probably doesn’t know about, and isn’t aware of when building your web site. SEO is something that should be considered prior to your site being built, but if you’re finding yourself in the opposite boat, don’t worry, there are still things that can be done to improve your site’s ranking in the search engines.

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More Information on Search Engine Optimization

Magic with Meta Tags and Search Engine Optimization

From Jennifer Kyrnin,
Your Guide to Web Design / HTML.

Using Meta To Improve Search Rankings

First of all, don't let me mislead you, meta tags are not the "magic bullet" that will skyrocket your site to the top of all search page listings. They are a tool that will help improve your standings in search engines that use them. Use them with other marketing strategies to garner more page views.

Another thing to remember: most search engines look at the body of text on your pages, as well as the page title. They take this information as higher relevance than any meta tags. So, be sure to always have a relevant <TITLE> on your pages, and relevant content in the body of the page. This will improve your rankings more than just meta tags alone.

What is a Meta Tag?
A meta tag is a hidden tag that lives in the <HEAD> of an HTML document. It is used to supply additional information about the HTML document. The meta tag has three possible attributescontent,http-equiv, andname. Meta tags always provide information in a name/value pair. Thenameandhttp-equivattributes provide the name information and thecontentprovides the value information. Meta tags do not have a closing tag.
(read more...)

GaGa for Google
From Jennifer Kyrnin,
Your Guide to Web Design / HTML.

Improving Your Web Site for Higher Google Rankings

Google is one of the most popular Web search engines at this time. But getting your site indexed is just one step to getting promoted by Google. You need to improve your ranking in order to show up higher in the Google search results so that people actually find your site.

While there are no "magic bullets" to improving your Google rankings, there are ways to help make sure that your site looks okay to the Googlebot. Combine this with some luck and some cross linking and you'll get higher ranking in Google.

Tips to Higher Google Rank

Your site should have a clear hierarchy. This means that headings should follow in order from h1 to h2 and so on.
Have a strong introductory paragraph on your site. This should not only explain what your site is about to new readers but also contain the keywords that you want to focus on.
All pages on you site should have text links to them, not just graphics. And it helps if those text links say something other than "click here".
Offer your readers a site map of your site. But make sure that it has less than 100 links per page.
Make sure your page has a descriptive title (META) tag. I did a search for "Untitled" on Google and came up with more than 11 million hits. Remember that it is possible to show only titles in Google search results, and 11 million is a hard number to rank high among.
For important content, use text, not images. The Googlebot can't read images.
Validate your HTML and keep your links current.
Always write your pages for your readers, not for Google.
Request reciprocal links from other Web page writers.

The key to getting high ranking in Google is to get lots of people to link to you. The more people who link to you and the more "important" they are in the Googlebot world, the higher you will rank for keywords. There are some things you should never do, as Google might ban your domain completely from their records.

The Don'ts

Don't try to hide text or links, such as by writing text the same color as the background color or within comment tags. Text needs to be visible to your readers for the Googlebot to consider it.
Don't cloak your site. This is a technique where devious people send Google and other search engine bots to a different page than their typical readers go to.
Don't fill your pages with irrelevant words. Having words multiple times on a page won't improve your ranking, and if they don't make sense in the context of the page, you'll annoy your readers as well as hurt your ranking.
Don't use automated programs to query Google. This impacts their bandwidth with no improvement of service to their users. It's also against their terms and conditions.
Don't be deliberately misleading or deceptive. From the Google site: "Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed..." If you think you've found a loophole in Google, it's a bad idea to use it.

Anchor Text Optimization

Jagdeep.S. Pannu
Expert Author
Published: 2004-04-08

If you have done some serious reading about your website optimization, you probably would have come across the reference to the phrase "optimization of anchor text". This article shall discuss the definition and importance of anchor text and how you can use this powerful website optimization feature to get high ranking in search engines.

What is Anchor Text?

Anchor text is the visible hyperlinked text on the page. Let's take this example:

"Please examine our SEO case studies for validation to evaluate our search engine optimization capabilities."

Here the words "SEO case studies" and "search engine optimization" are hyper linked to the hidden URLs http://www.seorank.com/seo-casestudies.htm and www.seorank.com respectively. The words within the hyperlink, "SEO case studies" and "search engine optimization", are called the anchor text.

In a normally built site, anchor text is usually used to indicate the subject matter of the page that it links to. For example, the text "SEO case studies" indicates to visitors that they can expect to see content about case studies pertaining to SEO if they visit the link. This pattern of usage has been applied in search engine algorithms to enhance the relevance of the "target" or the "landing page" URL for the keywords appearing within the anchor text.

Anchor Text Enhances the Relevance of the Target Page

Please note that the keywords in anchor text enhance the relevance of the target page pertaining to the keywords used. While the relevance of the page containing the anchor text is also enhanced to some degree (because of relevant keywords appearing on that page), the real gainer is the target page URL. Use this knowledge to build the relevance of each page of your site, through optimized anchor text containing important keywords, relevant to the theme of such pages, from other pages of your site. (read more about anchor text optimization )

"... good looking and professional my website looks ... I have noticed an increase in sales ..." ~ Louie Foxx