Search Engine Optimization - Ten Steps to Follow

Search Engine Optimization - Ten Steps to Follow
By Daryl H. Bryant

The art to successfully increase the rank of your website is a true science with no overnight solution. Some people believe you have to pay to be listed in the top of the search results. This is not true for the majority of search engines. The websites listed on the top are listed there because they are ranked higher and more relevant to a particular keyword search, by that search engine, than the websites listed below.

There are however separate areas for advertisers such as Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsorship Ads that you can pay for, but the main search area is normally free to be listed and one can increase their page rank by effectively performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for their website.

One thing you must understand is that it takes time to find what works for your site. If you make a change, you'll have to wait until it has been indexed in each search engine in order for you to effectively assess if the change has positively or negatively affected your page rank.

Below are ten steps to follow in order to increase your page rank in the major search engines. If these are followed, you will be sure to increase your rank. For help or more information on increasing your page rank, contact Hudson Horizons today.

• Be Legitimate – Most search engines analyze your website to determine if you are trying to manipulate their engine in any way. Do not do this. I repeat, do not do this. Be legitimate about your search engine optimization otherwise you will be penalized and your page rank will decrease, no doubt about it. The following Search Engine Optimization tactics should be avoided at all costs.
  
  
  

  Do NOT do the following:

  
  
  
  • Keyword Stuffing
  
  
  • Hidden Text
  
  
  • Cloaking
  
  
  • Doorway Pages
  
  
  • Redirects
  
  
  • Duplicate Sites
  
  
  • Interlinking
  
  
  

• Manage Page Titles - A page title is the heading of the page that will be listed in the search results when your site is located. It is also the title that will be displayed on the top of the browser window. It is important that each page contains its own unique title that is relevant to the content of that page. Having the same title on every page will not do you any good. The search engines might not properly index each page if they see your pages all have the same title. But on the other hand, if the engines see that each page has its own unique title, then it will realize each page is different and will index them accordingly. Also, make sure that the title is relevant to the content within that page.



• Manage Meta Tags – Meta Tags are information placed in the HTML header of a web page, providing information to a search engine that is not visible to a user. The two most common Meta Tags, relevant to search engines, are the keyword and description tags. It is very important that each page contains separate keywords and descriptions that are relevant to the content of that page.



• Google and Yahoo Sitemap Submission - Google and Yahoo Sitemaps offers a way for you to submit all your site's URLs to their search index to improve the visibility of your pages. With Google and Yahoo Sitemaps submission you can keep them informed of all the pages in your website and if done on a regular basis, provides fresher search results and a smarter crawl of your website.
  
  
  

• Content Development – Content is the key to success with SEO! With good-quality content, that's relevant to your products and services, you will be liked by the search engines. When a search engine crawls your website, it analyzes the content on each page and saves a copy to their index. When a search is performed it will lookup your site and determine if its relevant to the keywords being searched for. With short, poorly written content it will be difficult to be listed on the top few pages of a search engine.



• Write Articles – Writing articles and adding them to your website is a great means to providing more relevant content on your website. This will help your customers by providing them will relevant information in your industry while helping to index your pages. Be creative with you articles and be sure to list keywords and key phrases together that you feel prospective customers might search for.



• Good Internal Linking – It is vital that the internal links of your website are search engine friendly. Search engines easily pick up basic HTML links unlike links generated by fancy scripting, commonly used in drop-down menu navigation. Also, to help a search engine crawl every page, all sites should include a sitemap page, which categorically lists your page names and an HTML link to each page within the site, providing the search engines with a page to easily get to and crawl every page in your site. If you have over 150 pages, you should create separate categorized sitemap pages for each set of 150 page links.



• Reciprocal Linking - Exchanging links with other websites is an ok way to help increase your rank. It's not the best way but it may count. It's important to try and exchange links with more popular websites. A search engine will analyze the links on other websites that point to yours and determine the ranking of their website. If a poorly ranked site has a link to yours, it will not affect your ranking. But if you have a link on the homepage of a popular site like Yahoo pointing to your site, then it will definitely have a positive impact on your page rank.



• Patience – Patience is very important. It takes time for a change that you've recently made to be indexed in the search engines. You must be patient to see how your recent change or addition has positively or negatively affected your page rank. Submitting a sitemap of your URLs to Google and Yahoo will greatly increase the rate at which your changes get indexed.
  
  
  

• Do Not Overdue It – Sometimes it's better to do less than more and in some cases more will harm your page rank because search engines may see you as trying to manipulate their search engine and penalize your site. Follow all of these Search Engine Optimization tactics but start small and do not overdue it.

Click here to automated your Google and Yahoo Sitemaps today.

Hudson Horizons is an e-business product, solution and marketing company specializing in designing and developing highly sophisticated customized websites, web-based software applications and providing e-marketing services for our clientele.

At Hudson Horizons, our vision and ultimate ambition as a company is to always strive to be "The New Light for e-Business" by offering new, innovative and extremely competitive products and services to our customers that provide better ways to run and operate your business online.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daryl_H._Bryant

Google Facts

* God created the Google algorithm on the 8th day.

* Google searches for anything anywhere. It knows what you eat and what you *plum*.

* NASA have not found extra-terrestrial life because they were not smart enough to use Google

* When Serge Brin and Larry Page were born, Bill Gates had a nervous breakdown.

* Google costs so much there is a special Google department which invents this large number.

* Atlantis, Shakespeare's unknown diaries and Mozart's unreleased album were found using Google.

* If Google can't find anything, it means this thing is not going to appear for thousand years from now on.

* Google's main server is cast from purest gold, has a platinum keyboard and a display made from 20 kg of diamonds.

* Google is going to clone Einstein to employ him.

* JK Rowling searches for new Harry Potter in Google.

* Chuck Norris got a cell phone with Google Mobile - http://mobile.google.com/.

* Online advertising market still exists due to Google.

* 57% of American kids say 'Google' as their first word.

* I Google, therefore I exist.

* Google has the most modest logo in entire universe.

* If Google has an idea, competitors can shut down their business.

* Blue, green, red and yellow were designed by Google to be used in its logo.

* When a baby is born anywhere on Earth, it gets fully indexed by Google.

* American schools will soon have a class of Googling to teach the kids to use Google services.

* Google servers contain so much information all other information gravitates to it like steel to magnet.

* Once Google services were shut down for 0.1 second for maintenance. This caused disappearing of some galaxies.

* Google servers contain information about search queries God made when creating universe. This is the main reason for Google not to disclose the search query information to the US government.

* One employee of Google decided to crack a joke and send all the Google cache to his friend's GMail.com account, using Gmail. GMail.com was happy to face minor damage only because the fiber-optical cables it used to connect its servers were quick enough to melt.

* Google uses a new system for cooling down its CPUs which creates the absolute zero temperature.

* Every Sunday all Christians go to churches and pray to God that Google researchers never have an idea to create a perfect human.

* Experts say the Christmas mini-serial about a mouse and a cat was nothing less than a hypnosis method. Everybody on the net watched things develop, and those who missed the last episode died from curiosity. After so many victims died Google showed the entire serial to the public.

* US government politely asked Google to provide information about search queries its users make. Google politely asked US government to provide information about queries MSN and Yahoo users make. The government had to agree.

* After Vladimir Zhirinovsky claimed Russian scientists can change the gravity field of the Earth, causing the entire territory of the US to be flooded, Google claimed it tested its own technology in Atlantis.

* One of Google founders lost his wallet while being in Russia. He did not want to look for small change, but after that Russia experienced a 75% improvement in its financial position.

* Once a Google user typed 'free porn' as a search query. As a result, so many pages were found the result page was 2 Terabytes in size and this user's PC exploded. Since then there were improvements in the Google algorythm.

* From all the bricks with letters for kiddies you can only make one word, which is 'Google'.

* Google invented a md5 decipher algorithm without matching.

* All the letters used in the 'Google' word are copyrighted by Google. According to forecasts, Google will buy rights for other letters soon (which made Chinese and Japanese very happy). The company name won't change, though.

* If you have an age or psychological crisis, Google recommends you to find yourself using Google.

* Today 20% of children born for the last several years bear the proud name of Google. There is such a kid in Russia, called Google Ivanov.

* A second of Google servers' work takes power equal to 3 Chuck Norris reverse kicks.

(c) http://gfacts.alfaspace.net/

Gathering Links to your site

http://www.turntoandy.com/linkreport.htm


A great resource to have take a look if you want to increase your links building activities

Content, Links, Relevance and Page Rank

Content, Links, Relevance and Page Rank
By David Andrew Smith

SEO experts are constantly telling us about the importance of good quality content and good quality back links from web sites with relevant content. They also tell us that reciprocal links and page rank are of decreasing importance. They then instruct us as to how to go about getting good links by personally contacting other web sites and proposing a reciprocal link! Confusing! As is much of the advice given to prospective site designers.

Personal experience with our own web site has shown that the following is correct and works;

· Content is the key. Lots of it, with constant up dates to it, and it should be well written and informative not just a sales pitch.

· The more pages you can create the better. Upwards of 100 pages will highlight your site as an important one. Sites with only a few pages rarely appear on the first page of search engine results.

· As the site ages its importance will increase. Those who got in early generally outperform the later sites. Google also have an ageing process for links. As these links approach six months old they become of more importance.

· Reciprocal links once gone through the ageing process are still being counted, even with Google’s updated algorithm.

· Article writing and publishing will produce huge numbers of backlinks. You should be looking to produce upwards of 30 articles and aim for around 250.

· Attaching a weblog to your site which is updated daily will increase the rate at which the search engines visit your site and at the same time adds valuable content and links.

· Page Rank has still some importance in determining your position in the rankings because it is based on the links and the content of your site. However the page rank as given by the Google Toolbar is not necessarily accurate. A more accurate page rank can be gauged from using the detail supplied by the Google Sitemap statistics. Consequently generate a sitemap and submit it to Google.

The most important piece of advice is to design your site for the visitor and not the search engines. Have as much information within the content as possible and keep the graphics to a minimum.

David Andrew Smith is the owner of http://www.wesparkle.co.uk a cleaning services company which operates throughout the UK

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Andrew_Smith

Has Google Destroyed Surfing On The Web?

Has Google Destroyed Surfing On The Web?

By James Newton

Because that is what we used to do! We used to ride the waves of information and see where it took us. Remember those day's? We would type in a key word or phrase in our favorite search engine and start clickin'. Each site would have a link leading us to another site, and as you went you would always see something else cool, and click that. You started out looking for apples and ended up with zebras.

You could start with same word as many times as you wanted and never end up in the same place twice. It was the information highway, and you went on a road trip. It was an ocean of information, and you went surfin'. We didn't care what it was we were looking for at first, because we found all this other cool stuff we would have never known about.

Times have changed. Google pushed relevancy to the extreme. Or have they? Let's face it, search engines are nothing more than word searchers, and add posters. Any good word processing program has a way for you to search a document for key words. That is what Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the others do. It used to be the words would link to other words in ways you would have never dreamed. You would just follow those paths. Now these word search programs have become more and more advanced. Google has led the industry by taking good idea's and making them better.

They took search engine's to new level. They grew to such power that they are now shaping the world wide web into their vision. To not be indexed by Google is almost certain obscurity. So, you have to play by their rules. Yet, they keep changing the rules.

Google said content is king. Quantity of links determined popularity. And key words were aptly named because they were the keys to the indexing. Webmasters and Search Engine Optimization companies scrambled to meet Google's demands. Google had become the most popular search engine because it promised relevancy to it's users. Link farms, and link trading sites sprung up over night. SEO companies made huge profits giving advise that many never followed. Some found loop holes and used them to their advantage. To get to the top of Google required money, and/or, innovation. Google saw it's rules were being bent, so, it changed the rules.

They have apparently decided that too much emphasis was on the links, at least the link trading. They still wanted content to be king, however bloggs were doing their share of bending that rule too. Just before the biggest shopping week of the year, they mixed it all up again. Many of those that were at the front, are now in obscurity. Some that were doomed into obscurity are now scrambling to meet the demands that they suddenly face. Everyone is in a rush to get their sites to meet the new Google standards. We now write articles, or use others, with key words used in very specific positions in hopes that the word search program we know as Google will find our site relevant to their users. They have launched new beta programs that will build new ways to determine relevancy.

One of those, allows Google to pier deeper into web sites than ever before. Google site maps beta. Good news is webmasters now have the Google ruler in front of them, and can now, instantly see how they measure up. They can now tweak their sites to conform to the Google mold. Bad news is, this is a stepping stone to a bigger shake up, and a mold made of concrete. They want to see what your users are doing on your site to help determine popularity, and relevancy.

This could lead to dead locks. A site will have to be popular to be at the front of Google. How do you get to be popular without being at the front of Google? If Google doesn't send you traffic, then how do you get your site in front of everyone. The sites that get to the front will grow in popularity, while those at the back are forever doomed. Or, will they be?

Google is all about making money. How do they make money? With click through adds. The links Google says have the most relevancy are one way text links. Like an add. If your site is in obscurity, then you will have no choice, but to create good content and purchase adds. And, of course, one way to make money is to put Google adds on your article pages. Google is creating a money machine. Hey, I have no problem with that. I believe in free enterprise. The problem is in the content and relevancy. Remember Google got to the top by providing that to it's users. When you typed in apples, you got apples. Do you really?

If content is king, then those with the most articles about a given subject will be at the forefront of a key word. I wanted to know how to make a motorcycle helmet. I typed in “How motorcycle helmets are made”. What I got back, was a bunch of sites trying to sell helmets. None of them had articles on how a helmet is made. I looked through page after page of Google listing and could not find the information I was looking for.

On the flip side, if I want to purchase some lingerie for my wife, and I type in lingerie, I don't want to read about it. I want to see some lingerie, and make my selection at a safe, cheap, and secure web site. I don't care about the history of lingerie, I just want my gal to look sexy. How do I know if the site at the front of Google is going to offer me the best deal? Granted Google, and other search engines have come up with shopping links. You can compare prices on the same item listed at many different sites. Cool, that is what I want when I shop. Then why is a shopping site listed in front of information sites when I type in lingerie? What happened to all the cool sites I used to find when I typed in apple?

I don't think the relevancy problems are going to be fixed any time soon. Not until someone splits the web. At least two sections. Shopping, and information. If I have lingerie for sale, should not my site be indexed on shopping experience. If I am a search engine, and someone wants to shop, I should want to provide them with the best possible shopping experience, at the best possible prices, and the best possible selection. All the shopping sites are trying to fit the Google mold so creativity is lost.

For instance, Google frowns on javascript. I can't have fun javascript pages and get to the front of Google. I thought it would be cool if I could create a virtual reality mall. The shoppers walk into the front door (mouse manipulation) and tour the mall and look at the various shops. Will never be indexed. I want to create a super clothing store where shoppers can but shoes, purses, clubwear, lingerie, sportingwear, and accessories. Too many departments depletes your relevancy in any one department and destroys your indexing power. Google has destroyed web surfin'. Web users and web builders are now conforming to what Google says is relevant. Will this ever change? They greatest thing about the web is, it is ever changing.

The industry started with Apple computers and is now at Google. Bill gates started making a program with a bunch of guy's that eventually formed Apple Computers. Bill Gates went on to form Microsoft. The leaders of Google came from Microsoft. Who knows what, or who will sprout off next. It started with Apple, and may end in Zebra.

James Newton ownes and operates a retail store and a web site called Hot Stuff Leather and Lace, where he hopes to be at the top of Google one day.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Newton

Google Update Jagger - Ranking Results Disrupted

Google Update Jagger - Ranking Results Disrupted
By James Lipson


The latest Google update nicknamed 'Jagger', has,
and is, causing major distress to web site owners the world over. As with most
Google updates there is an initial period of movement in ranking position. This can
be, and often is, quickly followed by a cavernous empty feeling in the pit of your
stomach. However, before you panic and think about leaping from a tall building, or
shooting your local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert, take a deep breath and
remember this is normal and natural, the dust will settle. Google updates can last
anywhere from 1 day up to 8 weeks depending on how extensive the update may
be. With an estimated 16-24 billion web pages in its database, is it any wonder
these updates take as long as they do?





During this update period web site
owners will see their search engine results vary from day to day, (if not hour to
hour), sometimes with wild swings in either direction. Don't Fret! For any given key
phrase the ranking results can drop from 1 to 100, or
visa versa (cross your fingers). Either way don't become too attached to these
temporary results, they will change. One way to put your fears
at ease during this transition period is to check your Google Page Rank (PR) and see
if it has moved as well. If it has stayed the same then you can be fairly certain the
key phrases will bounce back. However, if your PR has dropped as well as your key
phrase ranking then it may be time to take a closer look to see what is going on. If
you are unfamiliar with obtaining a Google PR please use the link below for an on-
line check:


http://www.freelance-help.com/google-ranking-report/pagerank-
checker.php



Google only updates their
Page Rankings a few times a year, and depending on where you are this is either a
blessing or an excruciating long wait. This lag time does, however, make it a fairly
good barometer with which to gauge your site. As with most aspects of SEO this can
change without any notice or logic.


With the ever changing multitude of
contributing factors to Google's elusive ranking algorithm rest assured that if your
site has suffered lower ranking so have millions of other web site owners. Granted
this doesn't really help you sleep at night, that's what Ambian is for, but it does
confirm that you, and by you I mean we, are not doing anything wrong with the site.
Just wait and watch, once the update is over and the dust has settled we can see
where we are, adjust our SEO plan accordingly, and continue gaining key phrase
dominance!

James Lipson owns a professional web site design and development company whose
main focus is custom web site design and Search Engine Optimization and Recognition.
Contact James today at http://www.websight.org for more information.

Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Lipson

Website Page Rank - Are Affiliate Links Damaging Your Page Rank?

Website Page Rank - Are Affiliate Links Damaging Your Page Rank?
By Keith Lunt

Would it be possible for search engines to penalise websites displaying affiliate links? Would they want to? Should they?

I was looking through a links directory on one of my sites (Janric) to see how it had faired after the recent Google page rank changes and I noticed the page ranks varied from page to page.

Nearly all of the pages were created on the same day but some have loads of links, others not so many. All of them are linked to from the same directory page. I'd expected them all to be equal.

Most of the pages were page rank 3, but a few were page rank 2, so I decided to investigate. At first I though it was quantity of text or links on the page, but one of the lower ranking pages had only a few links, another was quite full. But there were both fuller and emptier pages with the higher page rank. So content size wasn't the problem.

Then I made a discovery - all of the page rank 2 pages contained affiliate links. Links I'd put in place to add a bit of content when I first created the pages and to try to add a small amount of extra commission. Could affiliate links realy be damaging my page rank?

Another site I run, RealWebTraffic has a similar links directory, built around the same time. So I decided to check that. This also had a variation with page ranks, but some of those containing affiliate links had the higher page rank. Theory blown?

No, the lower page rank pages had affiliate links, but the affiliate links on the higher ranking pages were "hidden" from the search engines.

Not conclusive proof and in no way hard evidence, but take a look at your own site if you are using affiliate links and consider masking them from the search engines - your page rank might just thank you for it.

Keith Lunt runs several internet marketing websites. Contact Keith through http://www.janric.co.uk

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com

Complete SEO Tutorial - Start from the Beginning

Complete SEO Tutorial - Start from the Beginning!
By Manish Kumar Pandey

SEO the short form of Search Enigne Optimization, is a tremendous need of the day for many webmasters...

You have made a web site and consider it as the #1 site that you could have ever made but, is that the case with the people of this world and most importantly, the search engines??

It's a fact that people are coming from the search engines and to let the world know that you exist you have to make search engines 'love' your site... and to do so you have to just take care of few things as listed below and I asure you that as you master these things you will certainly grow!!!

1. Site Concept This should be the subject that you like most! It could be anything. If you like travelling then you can make wonderful site on travel based, if you like animals you can come up with that site... just sit down for a minute and just think what do i talk about and what do you do for entertainment... because everybody has something special in him that makes him diferent from others.

2. Keywords Now, the next step would be to know what people actually type in the search engines to search for to get to the site that you want to make. Go to http://inventory.overture.com and type in the words that you think that people will type to see you site.

Extract few keywords from it but at the beginning just consider those that have less number of websites already on! Less websites= Less Competetion!!

3. On-page Optimization This is the very important section... Here you have to consider various things to develop a nice site. Your

How To Get Into GOOGLE Search Engine In Less Than 48 Hours - Straight!

How To Get Into GOOGLE Search Engine In Less Than 48 Hours - Straight!
By Manish Kumar Pandey

So, you now have a site up and ready! The next step, the most important step is to get listed in various search engines and directories! For this you would have seen various services that are provided on the net "Automatically Submit Your Site To 100,000 Search Engines and Directories" these are just of no use... You can try this! Just go to the addurl section of the most used search engine Google.com When you add an URL there the people say that your URL is placed in 'queue' to get indexed and may take 4-6 weeks before being listed there!

You would be thinking 'I wasted all my time and effort to just wait!' So here is the solution of this just type in your key phrase in the search box of Google. COM and see the Page Rank of the sites (you would require Google toolbar installed to know the website's page rank). Now find sites having PR's greater than 5 or 6. These are the sites that are of much importance to the Google robots! The Google robots index these sites regularly in a day or two. The next thing you would like to do is have a link exchange program with few good PR's sites!

Do you get the point?

No, let me explain. Let Google search your site rather than you search for Google indexing your site! When you exchange links with site having PR's 5 or 6 then it's certain that your site would be there indexed in Google under 48 hours!

Now, think if you manage to exchange links with sites having PR's 7 or 8 .... then your site would be on Google's robot's list in less than 24 Hours!

In the next article I'll be telling you Why is it important to Exchange Links and what kind of links!

Manish Kumar Pandey is an Engineering student, a webmaster. He has build many
websites including sites involving
Small,
Internet Home Based Business Opportunity He has helped many people to build
an attractive sites for both Human & Search engines.

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com