Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’

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Action List: Get inbound links to your site from other websites

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

A big part of your search engine optimisation strategy needs to be inbound link building.  The search engines see inbound links from quality websites as a tick of approval for your site.

Getting a link from a good site is a vote of confidence that your website is equally good, and your search engine ranking will improve accordingly.  Links from thematically-similar sites and high credibility sites, such as government or educational institutions, will normally hold more credence than other links.

So how do you go about getting inbound links.  Here are some suggestions:

1. Offer something in return

You can offer a link in return, but sometimes webmasters don’t want to do this.  Alternatively, you could provide discounts or an advertising slot.  Be careful about paying for links – Google will penalise you if it suspects that links are paid for.

If you are selling something, you might provide your buyers with a discounted price if they install a link back to your website.  This has been our strategy with CapitalJobs.com.au – we have provided discounted rates to recruitment companies who have installed a ‘Find our jobs on CapitalJobs.com.au’ link button on their websites.

2. Ask your current link partners

If another website already links to you then they might be willing to add further links to your website on other pages.

3. Network with people in your industry

Networking with like-minded professionals in the same industry can help you to get links to your website. A great way to exchange links with these people is via blogs.  If you write an article on your blog, then you might ask a colleague to link to it, and vice versa.

4. Demonstrate that others have linked to your site

If you have existing links from well-known websites, then this fact might heighten the chances of you getting further links from other sites.  You will need to advise prospective link partners of your existing links to prove your credibility.

5. Produce fantastic content

The search engines use inbound linking as a major measure of your site’s importance, because they expect that sites with good content will naturally be linked to from other places on the internet.  So the best strategy for obtaining inbound links is to produce fantastic content.

Getting links from other websites isn’t difficult if you know how to do it. It can be time consuming, but well worth it in the long run.

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Action List: Use Gravatars to build your online personality

Monday, January 19th, 2009

gravatar

As a netpreneur, it’s a good idea to subscribe to like-minded blogs and websites and to offer comments and suggestions to posts written by other authors.  By posting well-written and useful tips and commentary, you can greatly bolster your credibility in a certain field – not to mention increase your search engine popularity through cross-linking with a thematically-similar website.

One way that you can set your comments apart from others on blogs and websites is by using Gravatars, or globally recognised avatars.  A Gravatar is simply an image that follows you from blog to blog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites.  These normally take the form of a small portrait of the person adding the comment.  Gravatars are associated with the author’s email address, so each time you enter your email address when posting to a website, your gravatar will also display (assuming that the blog has enabled their display).

Why would you use a gravatar?  It allows readers to ‘put a face to a name’.  An image of a commenter is instantly recognisable, particularly if you are a prolific commenter.  In a world where time is short and web site pages are scanned, not read, the gravatar can provide a very important marker for indentification.  Think of it as your own ‘pen pic’, similar to the portraits that appear next to regular columnists in the newspaper.  And if you are a credible commentator, then it’s likely that your gravatar will prompt people to stop and read your comments (and hopefully visit your website).

It is recommended that you use the same gravatar image for all of your commenting and social media interaction – for example, your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon images should all be the same.  This serves to increase your brand recognition and the credence of your online personality on the web.

To set up a gravatar, visit: http://en.gravatar.com

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Action List: Get your page titles correct

Friday, January 16th, 2009

title-tag

One of the most important factors – if not THE most important factor – in optimising your website pages for the search engines is the page TITLE tag.  This tag describes what the page is all about and appears at the top left of the browser window when viewing that page.

It’s important that you get the TITLE tag right for every page on your website, because not only does it appear in the browser, but it almost always the bold linked text that appears in the search engine results.  This is the cue that will determine whether a visitor clicks through to your site or not.

If you get your TITLE tags right, then you will enjoy higher search engine rankings and more targeted traffic to the most appropriate pages on your site.

Here are some tips for good TITLE tags:

- Include your business name, nature of your business and locality in the tag – particular if you are targetting local traffic

eg. Getaroom.com.au – Hotel reservations booking engine in Sydney, Australia

- Depending on the strength of your brand name, you should position your business name accordingly (ie. well-known businesses should place their business name first, as it is likely that many web surfers will search on the business name):

eg. Hotel reserverations booking engine in Sydney, Australia from Getaroom.com.au

- Use keywords in your TITLE tag that people are likely to use in a search on Google

eg. Adelaide hotels and accommodation – get cheap hotel deals in Adelaide, Australia

- Don’t try to stuff too many keywords into the title

- Don’t use special characters in your TITLE tags, such as symbols.  These might not display correctly in the search engine listings.

- Use a different TITLE tag for each page – if you use the same tag for multiple pages, then Google and other search engines may not index the page.  Also, it’s likely that the tag won’t adequately explain what the page contains and the page will not attract the right type of traffic.

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Action List: Don’t use shady optimisation techniques

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

shady

Everyone wants to appear top of the pops on Google and the other major search engines.  Some people will do almost anything to achieve the top ranking.  Some of these shady methods may result in a short term win, but it’s likely that websites that use ‘black hat’ techniques will ultimately incur Google’s wrath.

It used to be that you could stuff your website full of keywords and achieve high rankings in the search engines.  Those times have changed.  Search engines have become very smart in how they go about indexing websites.

The aim of the search engine is, of course, to deliver the most relevant search results to the web surfer and so it is the search engine’s best interests to exclude or demote sites that try to manipulate the rankings.

To that end, it’s important that you use ‘white hat’ optimisation techniques for your website, and not resort to those tempting ‘black hat’ techniques that many so-called search engine optimisation specialists use.

Black hat techniques include automatically generated doorway pages, cloaking and false redirects, keyword stuffing, hidden text or hidden links, paid links and automated linking systems.

If you are caught using these methods, then you may be excluded entirely from the search engines – and it’s often a very long road back for redemption.  Being excluded from Google could have a debilitating effect on your online business by cutting off the lifeblood of your website - web traffic.

You should avoid shady SEO methods at all costs. Do not participate in automated linking schemes or sign up with an SEO specialist that promises instant results. If someone promises you a quick and easy solution that requires no or little work then it is very likely it will do your website more harm than good.

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Action List: Develop effective ‘landing pages’ for your paid advertising

Monday, January 12th, 2009

landingAttracting customers to your website through Google AdWords is one thing, but it is an entirely different thing to persuade them to transact with your business once they get there.

Each time a person clicks on your Google AdWords advertisement, it costs you money. It doesn’t matter whether the page fails to load or if the visitors spend only 2 seconds on your site, your money still goes into the Google coffers.

That’s why it’s so important to develop effective ‘landing pages’ for your Google Adwords campaigns – landing pages are the pages that visitors ‘land’ on after they have clicked on one of your advertisements.

If you want conversions, your landing page must have a clearly defined goal. It must guide the visitor and it must contain a clear call to action. Your website visitors must be able to see within seconds what’s in for them when they visit your website. 

It’s also important not to distract the potential buyer by offering them ‘escape’ routes on your landing pages.  You’ve paid for them to arrive at your site (and they are a qualified buyer because they have used a keyword combination relating to your goods or services), so it’s not a smart move to distract them with third-party advertising banners, links to other sites, or with content that does not relate to the original keyword entered by that person to find your site.

If you are not following these guidelines, then your Adwords campaigns will not achieve their aim – that is, to convert visitors to leads.  You may very well be wasting your hard-earned marketing dollars if your ads and landing pages are not constructed correctly.

This ebook is the most comprehensive specialised book about Google AdWords that is currently available. The ebook contains comprehensive screenshots, tables and check lists, which help you to get quick results and lower advertising costs for more profit.

To read a little more about good landing pages, take a look at this article from Search Engine Watch – http://searchenginewatch.com/3632318

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Action List: Choose ‘long tail’ keywords over short keywords

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

I’ve just been reading an article about long tail vs head keywords – http://searchenginewatch.com/3632347 - and it prompted me to add this action item for netpreneurs.

It is almost impossible to get your website optimised for single-word keywords – eg. hotels.  It’s much better to optimise your site for a combination of keywords, or what are known as ‘long tail’ keywords.  Not only will it be easier to get to the top of the search results, but you’re more likely to get a sale if somebody finds your site using these keyword combinations.

Using the example above, how many times have you searched on the single keyword term ‘hotels’?  I’m willing to bet that you have never done so, because the keyword ‘hotels’, in isolation, has no context – where is the hotel that you are looking for?   It’s not likely that you will find what you are looking for in the search engines if you were to use this term.

If you were looking for a discount hotel in Sydney, you would be more inclined to use the terms ‘cheap hotels sydney’, which is an example of a ‘long tail’ keyword.  It is much easier to optimise for this keyword combination and get results, than if you were to use the generic term ‘hotels’.  In fact, one of my sites, www.getaroom.com.au, currently appears in the top ten listings on Google for this keyword combination (at least it did when I checked last).

Clearly, the person that searches on ‘cheap hotels sydney’ is closer to making an accommodation purchase, than the person who simply types in ‘hotel’ – the former is more motivated towards a sale than the latter.  Hence, it’s best to employ ‘long tail’ keyword combinations.

To work out which keyword combos are best, it’s a useful exercise to try and emulate your customer’s behaviour when settling upon keywords – if I were a customer, what would I plug into a search engine to find my products?

Be aware that it’s a lot easier to optimise for combinations of 4-5 words, than combinations of 2-3.

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Action List: Avoid duplicate Title and Meta Descriptions

Friday, January 9th, 2009

webI often come across websites on the internet that have the same page title for every page on the site.  In effect, these sites are telling Google and the other search engines that every page is about the same topic, even though every page is different.  Bad move.

It’s important to ensure that all your title tags and description elements are related to the content on that specific page. If you don’t do this, then Google may penalise you.  Creating specific page titles will not only reduce your chances of getting penalised but it will also dramatically increase the breadth of search terms you will rank for.

I think most site owners are guilty of this one – check your pages today and ensure that no two page titles and descriptions are the same.  It can be a labourious task changing all of those titles and metatags, but ultimately it will be of benefit to your business.

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Free Website Performance Tool

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

This handy website performance tool has identified some speed issues with my websites. 

http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com

It’s worth running the tool for your own websites

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Michael Bloch: Search Engine Optimization – Title Tag Tips

Monday, December 1st, 2008

website-picA well thought out title tag is a simple, but incredibly important part of search engine optimization. A good title tag will help you in your quest for better rankings.

Many site owners still tend to use text along these lines in their title tag: “Welcome to SiteName.com”

This is a little bit of a waste of primo page real estate, particularly if your company name is not relevant to the products or services you sell. Major search engines consider the text contained within a title tag as an important part of relevancy and therefore ranking.

I experienced this first hand on my own site many years ago as “Taming the Beast.net”, the name of my business, really did not reflect what my site was about. By simply changing the title tag text, I saw an improvement in ranking for the home page very quickly.

What is a title tag?

The TITLE tag isn’t displayed on your page, but is shown in the browser title bar when the page is viewed. The title tag can be found by viewing the html source of your page. It is located before the <body> tag, between the <head> and </head> tags e.g.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Title Tag Text</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<p>content of the page</p>
</BODY>
</HTML>

In Microsoft FrontPage, editing title tags is simple. Right mouse button click over the page while in “Normal” mode and select “Page properties’, then complete the field that states “Title”. Click OK and that’s it. In other editors, usually there will be a feature similar to this; check your editor’s help file for instructions.

How long should a title tag be?

In my opinion, The title tag should be kept between 60 – 90 characters in length; but recommended lengths will vary depending upon the person’s own experience. To me, a good guide is the way Google displays search results. You’ll notice that Google only displays approximately 65 characters of the title in listings, although some engines display more.

Relevancy and keywords

Even if you choose to use more characters than I recommend, you should always have the most important keywords towards the beginning of the tag. Keywords are important and popular terms related to the content of your page

Here’s an example:

<TITLE>Web marketing – articles, tools, news and reviews</TITLE>

Important note – always remember to close your tags e.g. </TAG>

Things to avoid

Another very important tip – always use different title tags for each page of your site and only use the same word no more than twice in a single title tag; preferably with a decent gap between. This is to prevent search engines from a) mistakenly “thinking” all your pages are the same or similar in the case of the former and b) for the latter, avoiding penalties for overusage of a single word; a practice known as keyword stuffing.

One final big “don’t” is not to attempt to fool the search engines by implementing irrelevant titles. For instance, if your page is about car steering wheel covers, don’t use tags that indicate it’s about car insurance. This type of activity can see your page ranking penalized ; particularly if it’s obvious that it’s a conscious implementation.

Back your title tag up with good content

A good title tag without solid page content will be of little benefit; so try to ensure that your visible page content is unique, keyword rich (without going over the top) and unique. Along with a few inbound links from other sites and a dash of luck, you’ll soon see the benefits of taking care when implementing your title tags!

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Michael Bloch: Getting Australian traffic from Google

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

google-ozAre you an Aussie online business owner with a site targeted to people in Australia? Do you have non-.com.au domain name extension and is your site hosted on a server outside Australia?

If so – are you having trouble ranking on Google.com.au search, or perhaps even just getting listed, yet you’ve observed all the basics of good optimization techniques?

It’s a common problem; but a feature provided by Google may help you improve your rankings – totally legitimate, no shady SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tactics involved.

My own example of tanked Australian rankings

I’m based in Australia (Adelaide), but  my site; TamingTheBeast.net, is a non-Australian domain name and it’s hosted on a server in the USA.

If you run a search on Google.com using this keyword set:

web marketing adelaide

..my site should be listed on the first page where it’s been for years; well – let me clarify that – it was still there at the time of writing – Google giveth and Google taketh away and perhaps it’s done the latter by the time you read this article :) .

Now try the same search via Google.com.au, selecting the “pages from within Australia” radio button. My site is not in the top ten results, not even in the first 100 results. If I was depending on search engine traffic from the local market; I would have been toast a long time ago and certainly wouldn’t be able to work full time from home as I have done for the last 6 or so years. A first page ranking is so crucial for generating appreciable traffic.

So why such a difference? Why is it that I rank so highly for exactly the same term on a list of results double the size of the local results; yet on the local search results I’m nowhere near a ranking that would provide me any benefit?

It’s partly, and predominantly in my opinion, because Google weighs the domain name country extension and where a site is physically hosted as part of calculating ranking in Australia-specific searches. The term “adelaide” just doesn’t have any real ranking power in this type of search unless it’s associated with a local domain name (.com.au) or the server is located here.

Previously when this occurred to site owners, they’d usually have to redo their site with a new .com.au domain name, new content and host it on an Australian based server – basically starting from scratch. Thankfully, Google last year decided to provide an easy to use tool so you can manually flag which country your site should be associated with; regardless of extension and server location.

To make the geographic association, you’ll need to log into/register with Google Webmaster Tools, then click on the “tools” tab, select “set geographic target” and select your country from the list. Nice and easy – then it’s just a matter of crossing your fingers and waiting.

If you haven’t come across Google Webmaster Tools before, it’s a free service provided by Google to assist webmasters in diagnosing potential site problems, monitor how Google crawls and indexes your site and to gain some insight regarding the visitors who arrive on your site via the search engine.

Important points to consider

Only apply this feature site-wide if your online business caters primarily to the Australian market as it may have a negative effect on rankings in the general Google results. Notice I stated “site-wide”. More on that in a moment.

An issue to certainly consider before taking this action is how many people might be using the Australian specific Google search currently; i.e.; does your target market use the general Google search first and then only switches to the “pages from within Australia” if they can’t locate what they want?

If you have solid rankings for a chosen term in the general Google search, you may do yourself a rankings injury as you’re not guaranteed the same placement in the “pages from within” results. It’s important to bear in mind that the search engines will do as they wish; constantly changing and tweaking their ranking algorithms; so what works today, may not work tomorrow..

In my opinion, you should only do this if you aren’t ranking well on either search and Australia is your primary market – consider it a near last ditch effort if all else has failed before you start your site from scratch with a .com.au domain name, fresh content and hosting on an Australian server.

.. but there’s another great feature in Google Webmaster Tools that may help you if you don’t want to risk your general Google search rankings, yet want to try and boost your Australian traffic.

While specifying more than one country for a site isn’t possible in Google Webmaster Tools, you can choose a different country for each subdomain or folder. This being the case, an alternative and safer approach may be to create some fresh, totally unique and very Australian targeted content in a new folder within your web site; then flag with Google that folder as being Australia specific.

Switching web hosts

Geographic association is something you need to be very conscious of when moving to another web host if the local market is your primary interest. Just because a web hosting company may have an office in Australia, it doesn’t mean the servers are located here – in fact, you’ll often find the host’s servers are based in the USA.

While this is worth checking into before making a change of hosting provider; Google’s safety net of being able to manually associate a site with a geographic region provides somewhat of a safety net.

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