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Webmaster Tips
According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100
factors that affect search engine ranking. For those of you
who don't know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed
by Google but writes an independent blog and shares information
related to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately,
of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking,
there are only a few that webmasters can actually control.
Unless you are a interested in an exercise of
futility, it is important to only focus on those ranking factors
that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence.
What are Search Engine factors do webmasters
control?
Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those
items which the webmaster has the most control are: PageRank,
TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL,
and Relevant Links.
How can a webmaster use these items to help
ranking?
First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have
a descriptive page specific title and description. The title,
description, and header tags are channels to communicate the
most important details of a specific webpage. They should
be used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should
make use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent
keywords and phrases.
Particular attention should be paid when formatting
urls. Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used
in the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores between
the keywords. Search engines are designed by developers and
programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish
separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords
in the URL should not be abused, as search engines do not
appreciate excessively long urls. Avoid using characters like
ID= in the URL as many search engines will see it as a unique
session ID and not spider the contents of the webpage.
The website's navigation depth should not exceed
3-4 levels. The shallow website depth will make a search engines
deep crawl easier, ensuring that will be able to spider the
entire contents of your website. If you add a new page and
wish for it to be spidered quickly add a link to it from an
existing spidered web page.
Domain hosting and location do matter! A .uk
domain and a webhost located in the UK will increase the domains
search engine position in any .uk search engine. If you are
targeting a specific region or market consider purchasing
a local domain.
Obviously you control the websites content;bad
content or no content means no incoming links. Good content
has the potential to attract good quality unsolicited links.
What kinds of content generally attract quality
links?
The idea is develop quality content that will result in incoming
links. Think of JibJab, http://www.jibjab.com they portrayed
a controversial subject in a humorous way without alienating
their audience. While JibJab was able to garner a lot of attention,
its a tricky tight-rope to walk. Consider adding tutorials
that explain a specific technology, create a niche directory
or a topic specific glossary, post industry news, maintain
a blog with fresh content, or write how to articles.
Take advantage of your content. If you write
a press release don't just send it to the editors, add it
to your website in a press center. Submit the press release
to public relations websites. There area a number of press
related websites like PRWeb that are really good and all will
result in good quality incoming links back to your website.
Also add your press release(s) to an RSS feed, not only with
this communicate with your customers that new products or
updates are available but you will also benefit from links
from RSS search engines and directories.
When you post a release or content that has
genuine value, use social bookmarking tools (like digg, del.icio.us,
furl) to bookmark the contents. These social bookmarking sites
are becoming increasingly important in weighing the value
of a site. The large search engines do not yet use social
bookmarking in their algorithms, but it is quite possible
and highly likely that they will in the future. If the webpage/content
has genuine value others will social bookmark it as well.
The bookmarks are viral and with increasing popularity there
is more emphasis placed on the content. Additionally, bloggers
notoriously skim social bookmarking sites for content to write
about which will result in additional links. Keep in mind
that in order to bookmark a webpage, it really must have genuine
value.
Before we talk more about links, there are a
few warnings worth mentioning.
What are the link warnings?
The first is to attain links gradually, search engines prefer
links obtained over time rather than links achieved all at
once. Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt reciprocal
links, they can be time consuming and have very little benefit.
Avoid links on the C block. If you own multiple domains, be
sure not to triangulate links. Search engines have become
wise to this and they prefer a linking scheme that is more
like a star (or web).
What keywords should you optimize for?
When determining what keywords to optimize a website for,
there are a number of tools that will assess the number of
times that a keyword or phrase is searched on, the number
of websites/webpages competing for that keyword or phrase,
and rate the phrase. Obviously, the terms that have more searches
and less competition are the best to optimize for--if, and
only if, they relate to your product or service. If you optimize
for terms that are either too broad, you will likely increase
traffic but decrease your conversions. It is really a balancing
act. Two of the more popular tools available are Keyword Discovery
and Word Tracker. Also, talk to friends or family members
and ask what phrases they would use to describe your product
or service. You might be surprised with the terms they use.
Consider optimizing for regional variations, look at the variety
of terms used to describe soda - tonic, pop, soda, soda pop,
or cola all are relevant and popular but only within a specific
region. Examine web logs to determine what your users are
using, look at the language used in emails and forum posts
and consider optimizing specific pages for popular descriptive
terms.
And finally, use competitive intelligence to
locate links and keywords. What are your competitors using?
Analyze the adwords they bid on, look at their meta tags,
look at their anchor links.
There is a wealth of information out there,
no real mystery to it, so use it to your advantage.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts.
In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
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