Internet Information News

Search Engine Optimization

by Jill Whalen

From: Michael Lawford

Something regarding SEO has been puzzling me for quite some time now. It seems to me that even though search engine algorithms are constantly changing, the methods we use are staying more or less the same. As far as I know it is a simple(ish) process of:

1. Keyword selection
2. Meta tag optimization
3. Link popularity establishment

Surely there must be other elements to the whole process? It seems like there is really no need for doorway or hallway pages anymore. To me the best route is that of pay-per-click optimization. What do you think?

Best Regards,
Michael

If pages of the site don't have much copy to begin with, or if there is no specific focus on any given page, a rewrite from scratch will be necessary.

Once the keyword phrases are chosen for each page of the site, it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty and start utilizing them within the copy. If you're rewriting from scratch, be sure your copywriter understands which keywords need to be used, what the goals of the site are, and who the target market is. Obviously this information will affect how they write the copy, so the more they know, the more accurate your copy will turn out. If you're lucky enough to be able to edit in the necessary keywords, that's your next step. Once your copy is finished and approved, you should now have a number of pages focusing on two or three keyword phrases each, and the real fun begins! You're now ready to optimize the actual HTML code. 

Jill's Response
Hi Michael, and thanks for your question.

Well, you've got a good start to your search engine optimization methods, but you've forgotten the most critical element to the whole process. That is, utilizing your keyword phrases within the body copy on the page. Without that, all your keyword selection, Meta tag optimization and even link popularity building will be for nothing. As to doorway pages, you're quite right; there's no need for those anymore (nor was there ever any need, in my opinion).

To me, search engine optimization (SEO) has always been about making your site the best it can be. Adding doorway pages that are only there for the search engines does nothing to enhance your site. Creating great, visible copy that explains exactly what your site and your business are all about enhances your site tremendously.
Optimizing the HTML code includes creating Title tags, Meta description tags, Meta keyword tags, headings, image alt tags, and hyperlinks. All of these are important factors in helping the search engine spiders to properly classify your site. Rather than go into detail on how to perform all of these tasks, I'll direct you to some of my previous articles. You can also search through the archives at Rank Write for even more specific info.

When your code is optimized, it's finally time to upload your new pages to your server and submit them to the search engines. More info on this process can be found in my article entitled "Submitting to the Spidering Search Engines". At this point it's also time to perform your directory submissions or directory change requests. Some experts recommend that you do these before all the other work, so that you can start getting rankings right away. However, I prefer to wait until the copy changes have been made and uploaded. 

Let me tell you about the SEO process I go through with my clients, and hopefully this will help you with your own SEO campaigns.

The first thing I do when starting a new SEO campaign is find out the goals for the site and the optimization in general. For instance, is the goal simply to drive more targeted traffic to the site or is it to get people to sign up for a newsletter? Is the goal to get someone to make a purchase online, or is it to entice people to call or email for more information? Usually, the goals will be a combination of things. Very often different pages within the site will have different goals, and these need to be kept in mind throughout the SEO process. This information will also help us figure out how much rewriting or editing of the copy will be necessary to reach those goals.

With the end goals in mind, the next step is to compile a brainstormed keyword phrase list. At this point, we ask the company to send a list of the phrases that they feel are important to their site. It's important to also go through the existing site pages and pull out any keywords that appear naturally within the copy, and add these to the list. With list in hand, it's time for some heavy-duty keyword research over at WordTracker. Plug your keyword phrases into WordTracker and see what comes up. Very often you'll find that keywords the company thought were important are not actually searched upon by real people. Luckily, WordTracker will give you alternate suggestions to test. Eventually, you will be armed with WordTracker list of actually searched upon, highly targeted and relevant keyword phrases. Send this off to your client, whose job it will be to weed out irrelevant phrases from the list and rank the relevant ones in order of importance to their business.

Once this new "short list" is compiled, it's time to brainstorm with the client on which two or three phrases to focus on within the copy of each page of the site. The home page of the site should usually focus on the main two or three phrases that encompass the general theme of the site. Inner pages should each focus on two or three more specific phrases. If the pages already have some copy to work with (say 150 - 250 words or more), take a look at the existing words on each page and see which two or three keyword phrases in your short list will fit best with the current copy.
copy helps the directory reviewers to more easily understand what your site is all about, and they'll be less apt to edit your submitted description. If you submit before your site's copy is using your specific keyword phrases within the copy, the reviewer may feel these keywords don't belong within your directory description. More info on directory submissions can be found here and here. (Both of these articles are slightly out of date; however, the general information on creating descriptions, etc., is still accurate.)

Now it's time to begin your link-building campaign. As with directory submissions, I prefer to wait until the site is in perfect condition before starting to request links. The better your site is, the more likely others will be willing to link to it. Link building can be done in a quick burst, but should also be an ongoing process. You should always be on the lookout for sites that are a good fit with yours and contact them about exchanging links. For more info on link popularity and its effect on search engine rankings, please read this article.

At this point, the only thing left to do is wait for your rankings to roll in! If you've paid for inclusion with the search engines and directories that offer this, you'll start to see results within a week or two. If the rankings aren't as high as you'd like them to be, I don't recommend changing anything for at least three to six months. You'll need to give your link-building campaign time to kick in, as well as simply give your new site time to age in the engine's database.

That's all there is to it! Pretty simple, eh? Did I miss anything? Do you have another process? With thousands of SEO firms out there, I'm sure everyone has their own tried and true methods. The one I've outlined here has served me well, and I'm sure you'll find it will do the same for you if performed correctly. However, there's always more than one way to skin the SEO cat, so if your method differs a bit, don't worry about it if it's working for you!

Good luck everyone!

Top Five Search Engine Marketing Myths Uncovered

It's no secret that search engine marketing can drive significant amounts of very qualified traffic to a Web site, 85 percent of Internet users utilize search engines to find and research goods and services. The problem for many companies is the difficulty they face sifting through conflicting information and hyperbole. Here is my top five list of myths that need to be run to ground. 

Big Picture Myth No. 1
Search engine ranking leads are not as good as those which originate from traditional marketing vehicles (print, direct mail, PR, etc.). This is absolute hogwash, the truth is many agencies don't have a clue about search engine ranking, so they push their clients to ignore this form of advertising. They simply don't want to recommend anything they don't understand, and/or utilize an interactive marketing vehicle that requires a blend of very specialized technology and processes. 

We've in fact found just the opposite when we've analyzed search engine traffic vs. other types of leads for our clients; i.e., search engine traffic can be much better, as it is comprised of individuals who are actively seeking information, not just people whose curiosity has been piqued by an eye-catching publication ad or press release. When we've analyzed the data by tracking leads via a landing page (on a Web site) we've discovered that CPL (cost per lead) numbers can be much lower for search engine ranking than other more traditional marketing methods. 

Big Picture Myth No. 2
Effective search engine marketing can be done in-house. This is rarely the case . The sheer complexity and online competition for rankings makes this extremely difficult for most companies. Based upon our analysis, more than 73 percent of corporate accounts don't understand the basic fundamentals; i.e., how to properly use keywords, META tags and titles, and worse, don't submit their Web sites to top tier directories (Yahoo, LookSmart, OPD) and the hundreds of second-tier directories. 

Most companies delegate the search engine submissions to the Webmaster or Web site development staff and they just don't have the time to understand the daunting complexities required to generate ranking in the top three pages, or to stay abreast of the shifting submissions and ranking criteria standards, as modified monthly by top-tier search engines. In many companies the search engine ranking is added to the overworked Webmaster's tasks purely as an afterthought, as opposed to being addressed formally by the marketing department with dedicated personnel and a budget. 

Big Picture Myth No. 3
Off the shelf software that submits a site to thousands of Web sites and presents snazzy reports can do it all. This is so inaccurate and nothing can be further from the truth. It takes a tremendous amount of labor and time to identify keyword sets (not just words), optimize the content for these keywords, submit the pages while obeying the rules of the road and then continually analyzing rankings and tweaking to maintain and drive rankings (Web site visibility). 

Software can certainly help automate some facets of the process and be used for backend analysis. But you can't expect any application to make the job easy, there is too much inherent complexity in the processes. And competition for keyword sets is fierce, as there are an estimated 5 to 10 million registered domains (the numbers vary widely) with 60,000 new domains being registered every day. 

Big Picture Myths No. 4 & 5
Any page listing will help to drive traffic to a Web site. This is another misconception. If you are aren't achieving rankings in the top three pages, then you're wasting a great deal of time and resources. Most people never drill down below these pages. Another common mistake is trying to achieve search engine rankings for a specific URL or product. If people know the name of a company or product they will find your Web site easily. It's a waste of resources to optimize for these specialized terms in 80 percent of most cases. 

Article by Lee Traupel, the co-founder of a Northern California and Brussels, Belgium-based, privately held marketing services and software company, 
Intelective Communications, Inc. 

Top Tips from the Best SEO's in the Business by Robin R. Nobles

Relevancy
There are countless tips for optimizing your page's content so that it will be more "relevant" to a given search. Each engine ranks pages differently, so most tips are not universal. However, there is one tip that overrides them all: Create pages that emulate the "statistics" of pages that already rank at or near the top of the search results.

These statistics include: a) Frequency of the keywords on the page. Tip: This does not mean more keywords are better. b) Total words on the page. Tip: Mimic the approximate number of words of a top ranking page on your own page. c) Weight of the keywords on the page. (i.e. frequency divided by the total words) Tip: Too high a weight is just as bad as too low a weight. d) Area or location of the keywords on the page. (i.e., title, heading, etc.) Tip: A keyword is given more relevance by an engine when the keyword appears in the engine's "preferred" areas. e) Prominence. Tip: Generally, the closer to the front of the area you can place the keyword, the better. f) Proximity. Tip: The closer that the words of a phrase appear together, the better. g) Off-page criteria. (i.e., link popularity, click through popularity, etc.) Tip: Even when you've done everything else right, don't forget the off-page factors!

For best positioning, content should be placed at the top of a page. However, for splash pages or pages without any content, content can be added at the very bottom and the scroll bar can be hidden to prevent a visitor from reading the optimized content.

Keep the graphics low and the content high. All engines do two things: index text and follow links. Give the spiders the opportunity to do just that. Keep the content as high on the page as possible and give relevant links to quality content either on or off-site. The HTML title should be focused and accurately represent the content of the page.

How To Design Your Website For Maximum Sales

1. Front Page

Make it brief and quick loading. Avoid large graphics, fancy Flash movies and hefty Javascripts. Have a sharp marketing focus. Display your most important marketing information on your front page. Avoid filling it with tons of details or hyperlinks. Your front page's primary function is to capture the visitors' attention and generate further desired actions such as the browsing of your sales catalog.

2. Web Design

Adopt attractive and professional designs. If you are not skillful with HTML and graphics, engage a professional web designer to produce your website. This is one investment that will pay off in the long run. Your website is your online salesperson. It reflects your business image. An attractively designed site builds sales credibility and trust.

Create a uniform theme. Use uniform colors and graphics throughout your site. Take a peek at the websites of top market players in your industry. What kind of design do they adopt? If they are at the top, they are definitely getting it right!

Test your pages on computers with different screen resolutions and connection speeds. Do you encounter any bugs or layout issues? Browse your website from your potential customers' prospective!

3. Site Navigation

Lack of navigational links or too much of them affect sales.

Sites with little navigational links leave visitors stranded as they browse deeper. A common navigational menu, either at the left-hand side or the top and bottom of every page, ensures a smoother browsing experience.

Having excessive links in your navigational menu also confuse visitors. If your average visitor spends just 15 minutes at your site, you want them to go to your most important pages. Avoid fanciful navigational menus that load too slowly.

Regularly monitor and update the hyperlinks on your website. Dead or outdated links reflect poorly on your business.

4. Order Form

Place your ordering link at a prominent position. Let your visitors find your order form easily. Test the form thoroughly for bugs. Don't lose sales because your order form doesn't work or hang halfway through the transaction!

Make sure that your prices, shipping and handling costs, delivery schedule, return policy and guarantees are clearly displayed or linked.

Ask only for the necessary information to complete the sale transaction. Avoid unnecessary fields. Your customers want to complete their transaction quickly.

5. Seal Programs

Seal Programs such as the Better Business Bureau Online (BBBOnline) Reliability Seal at http://www.bbbonline.org  can enhance your business image.

Displaying these seals on your website assure potential customers that your business is credible and legitimate. This is especially useful for new startups or small businesses.

Cloaking - A definite NO 

The search engines are pretty good at their jobs. This is especially true of the larger, more established monster listings such as Altavista and Google. They have to be good, as they are in a constant state of war with search engine spammers (webmasters who attempt to artificially increase their rankings in the search engines by unethical means).

You see, the higher a site ranks in the major search engines, the more hits it receives. In many cases, hits directly translate into dollars. Thus, a web site which can, say, double it's hits can often double the amount of money it makes.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, it's common knowledge that sites which do not show up on the first three pages of listings in a major search engine may as well not be listed at all.

In addition, it's important that a site get listed on popular keywords. For example, far more people search for the word "plumber" than "person who fixes pipes". While you might get a few visitors with the later term, you will not get anywhere near as many as the first.

Each of the major search engines has different rules that it uses to rank web sites. Some engines want metatags, some prefer straight text and others want a mixture of both. Some search engines may be fine with dozens of keywords in a metatag, and others want only one. The list goes on and on - each search engine looks at different things in a page.

Why do they go through all of this trouble? They are attempting to determine what your page is all about. The theory is the more a particular keyword (or phrase) is mentioned (and in more ways), the more likely your page is about a particular subject. Thus, if "plumber" appears in the text a few times (especially in the H1 and H2 tags), in a metatag, an ALT tag and the title, then it's likely your page is indeed about plumbers.

On top of that, the search engines must protect against spammers. These are people who use various tricks to fool the engine into thinking they should be well ranked. For example, a common technique a few years ago was to include very small, invisible text containing keywords. The visitors would not see this text but the search engine would and thus would be fooled (the search engines figured this one out a long time ago and it no longer works).

When the search engines discover a web site is spamming, their response is to either (a) drop the site way down in rankings or (b) ban it entirely. If your site has ever been banned from one of the big engines, then you completely understand how devastating it can be to be dropped all of a sudden.

But then again, getting to first can be so rewarding. It can mean the difference between a thousand dollars in sales and a million. Literally. But how do you get to be first with a particular keyword in as many search engines as possible? One way is to look at other sites to see what they have done and, ahem, steal the ideas (or just copy their keywords to your own pages).

But there is a wildcard in all of this, and that's the simple fact that the search engines use different rules to determine the ranking of a page. One engine allows three keywords and will rank higher if it finds three, another might want those keywords to be near the top of the page, and still another might want them in a comment. The second engine (the one that wants the keywords near the top) might actually drop your rankings if it finds three keywords.

One of the more common ways to handle the problem of different search engines is to have different entry pages. Using this method, you might have a page which is perfect for Google, another which is exactly right for Altavista and a third which is made for Northern Lights. The problem with this, of course, is your visitors will be directed by each engine to pages which are probably not exactly right for human beings. After all, the engines work even better with all of those fancy tables and lists which make your pages look so good. And, of course, this does nothing to prevent someone from stealing, uh borrowing, your keywords.

There is a technique which appears, on the surface, to solve every single problem that you could dream of having with rankings and different search engines. This technique will make it header for people to steal your keywords and it will allow you to have different pages for each search engine, while still landing your visitors on a page perfectly suited for human reading.

It's called "cloaking" and it is exactly what it sounds like. The technique is pretty simple, really. You see, search engines are very nice about identifying themselves. They do this for a number of reasons, one of which is to make it easy for a web site to allow or reject their attentions (believe it or not, sometimes there are good reasons NOT to be listed in a search engine).

In a cloaked site, a special script is written which is executed on the server. This can be done with ASP or PHP pages (these are two different scripting languages) although most commonly it is done with standard CGI scripts executed using SSI.

Using this method, the script is called before the page is loaded. The script determines the name of the thing that is loading the page. Is it a browser or a search engine? If it is a search engine, which one is it? Based upon the answer, the script loads a page. So if it determines that the page is being loaded by Altavista, it will call up the page which is optimized for Altavista. The same goes for Google, Northern Lights or any number of other engines.

This tends to hide the keywords and other search engine ranking techniques from prying eyes, since human beings always see a page created explicitly to be seen by humans. Note that this just makes it more difficult to get these keywords, not impossible. You see, the name of the search engine or browser (called a user agent) is handed to the server by the browser - and it's not hard to fake (in fact, it's pretty darn trivial).

Cloaking is somewhat of a pain, since it does require a very well written script, the use of server-side scripts, and, of course, a different page for each engine plus one for human reading. And since it's best to do this with ALL of your pages, it could significantly increase the amount of work you need to put into your site.

Another thing that cloaking is very good for is to present different pages to different browsers. This is a very cool way to create a site which looks perfect in Netscape and Internet Explorer as well as Opera. Of course, creating different pages for just these three browsers triples your work. So should you consider cloaking? Absolutely not.

You should NOT use cloaking.

Let me repeat this - do not use cloaking on your web site.

On the surface it sounds like the perfect solution to search engine optimization except for one significant fact.

Cloaking is considered by all of the major search engines to come under the heading of search engine spamming. If you are caught (and it's easy for a search engine to figure it out) you WILL be banned from the engine. How do they catch you? Simple. The search engine simple sends a few test scans at the same time to your site using different TCP/IP addresses and identifications, and it "fools" your script into thinking it's a different engine. If your page looks different, it's possible it's cloaked.

So my advice is simple. Don't use cloaking. Instead of putting your efforts into fad promotional techniques and spamming methods, create quality content, get other webmasters to link to your site, and add honest keywords, titles, ALT tags and descriptions. Do this and your site will honestly move up the rankings. Honesty is also without fail the best policy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

Website Copyright Protection 
by R.Dale Bowyer / iEntry Staff Editor

What are copyright laws? How do they affect my firm and how do they affect me? What are my responsibilities and why should I care? These are all questions that most developers and website owners have thought about at one item or another. This article deals with all of these questions and it will give you a starting point for your own firm’s copyright protection plan. 

Copyright protection. Sometimes misapplied, sometimes misunderstood, sometimes disregarded but at all times a concern not to be neglected. If you own a website or if you are involved with designing websites, you need to know as much as possible about how copyright laws affect you. That’s because, if you aren’t properly protected, it could end up costing you a lot of time and a lot of money. 

Although not intended as legal advice and not written as a legal guide, this article explains, in layman’s terms, your copyright responsibilities as a website owner, developer or programmer and how to protect yourself from possible future legal actions. 

Copyright protection law is applicable to all websites on the Internet and they vary by country. Copyright laws apply to the written content of websites as well as the design elements, the images and the programming code contained within them. 

International copyright law follows the International Copyright Protection agreements established by the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC). These agreements, between member countries, guarantee recognition of authors’ copyright protection in many countries at once as long as the work is published in two or more Berne Union countries within thirty days of its first publication. 

Regardless if your website is global or not, you need to adhere to International Copyright Protection Standards to fully protect your firm and yourself. It is a very simple matter to adhere to these standards. All you have to do is have the Copyright Owner’s name and the date of first publication on the work along with the © symbol. 

Your copyright notice should be placed on every page of your website, including your source code. It should be located in a place that gives reasonable notice of copyright and it should conform to the following structure: 

Copyright © 2002 John Doe 

The date of first publication is the date that the work was first electronically saved on disk or printed on hard copy. Copyright protection lasts until fifty years after the author’s death. 

What are you protected from? It protects you from having a person, a firm or an entity copy part or all of your website content and claim ownership of it as their own. 

What does it prevent us from doing? It prevents us from copying some portion of a copyrighted website, placing it on our website(s) and them claiming that it is ours. 

By placing a copyright notice on your website, you are declaring that you have express permission to use all material or that you actually own all material contained within your site. This includes all images, sound, programming code, logos, written material and design. If you copy anything from a website that you do not own (even page layout design) and then publish it on a website that you do own, you are committing copyright infringement. 

Material found on the web may be copied freely only if the information is created by the federal government (Public Domain), if the copyright has expired or if the copyright has been abandoned. 

You must remember that images (including graphics, logos and photos), writing, text, HTML, programming code, Java script, Midi’s etc. that you are given permission to use or display does not mean that you can claim copyright to it. Permission does not make you the owner. 

Depending upon the owner, the permission terms may vary. Whatever the case, it is important to include text on the same page as the material being loaned is used that specifies who the real owner is and that the material is being used by permission. 

"Shareware" and "Free Graphics" are provided on some websites and they encourage you to use them on your website freely. What are your copyright responsibilities? You are being allowed to use this material free if you adhere to the owner’s conditions. Make sure that you understand these conditions and that you apply them when using this material on your website. Do not claim copyright ownership protection on the page(s) displaying this material without making sure to claim permission for their use. 

Take caution that you do not claim "Public Domain" and "Fair Use" materials as your own by placing your copyright notice on pages that contain Fair Use and shared materials. Public Domain is information published by the government and it is freely available to the public. Fair Use is utilization of copyrighted material, without the permission of the owner, for the purposes of news, reporting, research, education and /or parody. Use of such material for any other purpose is not Fair Use and it remains protected under Copyright Protection laws. Make sure that you do not claim copyright ownership for either. 

As a final assurance that your copyrighted materials are protected, your copyright can be registered with the United States Copyright Office. The fee is $30 and you will have to register there if you ever decide to claim copyright infringement. You can also find information about current copyright protection laws at the United States Copyright Office website (see below).

Another alternative is to place your material on hardcopy or portable disk, place it in an envelope, seal it and then mail it to yourself. Have the mailing certified and you will have proof that you authored the material on or before the post-marked date. Make sure not to open the envelope after you have received it. Place it unopened in a plastic bag and store it for future use. 

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Sue Strand

605-274-1565 CST

sstrand at worldrecreationaldiscounts.com