Posts Tagged ‘search engines’
I have been a web marketer for the last ten years; there have been many changes to the way people should go about promoting their websites in this time and it can prove to be a bit of nightmare trying to keep in touch with the latest web promotion changes. What worked only three years ago could now result in your site receiving a ban or penalty on the major search engines. Link exchanges, at least on an excessive basis, and buyings links to gain a high ranking are now a thing of the past. So as we move through 2009 what types of web promotion strategy should a webmaster be following?
I am not personally involved in this industry; I prefer to help people to stop stuttering and I also work within the fostering services UK sector.
It is not that long ago when a person, well at least a person that had enough money, could purchase a highly ranked backward link which would then result in their website gaining a high SERPS. It did not even seem to matter if the site that was providing the link had anything to do with the site purchasing the link. We therefore saw online poker websites purchasing text link adverts on media and publishing websites which had a high page rank. The trading of backward links became big business with many people making a large amount of money.
Google, the daddy of all of the search engines, then decided to change the rules and I for one am very happy that they did. They decided that it was no longer ethical to buy or sell backward links. This upset a lot of people, this tends to happen when money is involved, with many accusing Google of acting as God. The reply from Google was short and to the point and went along the lines of; it is our search engine and we therefore decide our own guidelines; if you want to sell text links that is fine but it may result in some form of penalty as this goes against our current. They were basically saying you can do whatever you want with your website and at the same time we can do whatever we want with our search engine. Fair play, I say. I am actually very happy with the new guidelines; it was very hard to compete with webmasters who had deep pockets etc. Now the one-man band can compete with the big corporation; hard work, keeping up to date with the latest guidelines as well as learning from the SEO experts will once again prove to be very beneficial.
2009 brings about a new watch word in the world of web promotion; relevancy. What does this mean? Well quite simply the backward links that you attempt to obtain now need to be relevant to the site that you run for them to have a real benefit. Again this surely is common sense. If a website about gardening has a link pointing to a website about camping, is this offering any value to its site visitors? Not really.
2009 is also the year when those who are willing to work hard will finally get their rewards. Some of the old favourites such as article marketing are becoming more popular than ever but quality is now far more important than quantity. Only the best articles will be chosen to be published on other people’s websites and let’s face it they have enough articles to choose from.
Ensuring that your website is optimised correctly with the main keywords placed naturally within the text of the homepage will also be essential, be careful not to “keyword stuff” your homepage though.
If you’ve been trying to work online for some time are quite unclear about Search Engine Optimization (there ya go, that’s what SEO is!) this article is a must read. This article will explore SEO how you can use it effectively, and what you need to do to ensure you don’t get penalized.
(Before I dive right in, Alex Goad’s Conquest Authority is an online learning program that trains you on SEO in full detail, but first, you can start here.)
As I stated above, SEO stands for search engine optimization. The hardest question new internet marketers ask is what is a search engine? I know this is extremely basic, but this is where you must start. Once you learn the absolute basics, when you begin to explore more on the SEO topic, you will have a comprehensive grasp of exactly what SEO is.
Search engines are the websites you visit when you are trying to find something on the internet. For example, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, etc. These are all search engines. When you are trying to find an answer online, you go to a search engine, put in the information you are searching for, and voila! The search engine “searches” the internet for you and brings up an entire list of all the sites online that are relevant to your query.
Now you know what a search engine is, and you know what SEO is, let me get into the meat of things and explain how SEO works.
The most important thing you should do before any optimization, is you must determine the targeted keywords you will use for your site. To be more specific, finding the terms you want your site ranked for with the search engines. An example of this would be:
You have a website targeted around repairing computers. People who are looking for information on fixing their computers may search for these keywords: how to fix my computer, my computer has a blue screen, or where can I get my computer fixed. These phrases would all be considered long tail keywords, and those are what you would want to shoot for, because they are the actual terms that people search the search engines for.
Make sure when finding your keywords or key phrases, they are actual terms that get looked for, otherwise you will get no traffic. (Another tip is to make sure you pick keywords that don’t have lots of other websites targeting them. You may still never get visitors if there is too much competition.) I highly recommend using a keyword research tool to help you find some good ones. You can use Google’s free keyword tool, or Wordtracker’s free tool if money is short. They are great starter tools, and they do the job fantastically. after you start making some money, I really do recommend you get a paid tool because they are so much more effective, and you can really find some good keywords.
Here you can read more about finding good keywords here.
Okay, now you know what keywords you will use, the next step is to be sure your site is optimized for your keywords. So how can you do this? It’s pretty simple really.
The most important rule of thumb is always title your page or post with your keywords. This will be known as your title tag. Title tags have a huge influence on the search engines when they visit your site, so whatever you title your page, the search engines will assume it is a keyword and you are trying to rank for it. This holds true for your domain name as well. Your page/post title and your website title (domain name) are very big factors in the SEO world.
Once you have bought your domain (your URl), and you have picked your targeted key phrases or words, the next phase is to add content to your website or blog. Your article should be between 400-500 words at least, and make sure you include your targeted keywords or phrases at least 2-3 times in the content. Be careful not to go overboard with this, or you can get penalized. Make sure the keyword density is not over 7% (amount of keywords vs. actual words on page). Staying under 6-7% is much better. If you go over this recommended safety net, the search engines may see you as “keyword stuffing”. Keyword stuffing means using your keywords too many times in one page, and your site will pay for it if you do that, I promise.
The more content you have on your page, the better chance you have of being able to get all your keywords in and not make it look like you are keyword stuffing. In other words, keep your posts and pages long, and you can put all your keywords in. Search engines favor long text articles and unique content.
Do not fret about getting every keyword phrase in your article multiple times, because the search engines are smart, and if you have a quality site, Google will rank you for keywords you never even tried to rank for. The most important goal is getting your main phrase in 2-3 times, and the others at least once.
There ya go! That’s SEO in a nutshell. Get as much information as you can about the subject, because it really will benefit you in the end. To learn SEO takes some dedication, but soon enough you’ll be an SEO pro.