What is Search
Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of
improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines' "natural,"
or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic"), search results.
Brief Info of Google
Bot
The Googlebot is Google's main robot (or program) that
crawls websites to index them and analyze them. The Googlebot script follows
links from web page to web page. Typically Google finds and indexes new
websites and web pages because the Googlebot follows links to discover them.
The Googlebot also analyzes the on-page optimization factors that help
determine where a web page should rank for it's targeted keyword phrases.
Types Of Search Engine Optimization
Normally we have two types of Search Engine
Optimizations methods.. those are as follows..
·
On-Page Optimization
·
Off-Page Optimization
What is On-Page
Optimization?
On page SEO is a process to modify of your web page. It
deals with the SEO techniques used to modify the content on the web pages such
a code, content and design to enable search engine crawlers to effectively
crawl and index your website.
Ø On-page Components
Ø Domain Optimization
Ø Keyword Research
Ø Competitor Analysis
Ø Homepage Optimization
Ø Website Analysis
Ø W3C Markup Validation
Ø Content Optimization
Ø Keyword Density
Ø Title Tags
Ø Meta Description
Ø Meta Keywords
Ø Meta Robots
Ø Heading Tags
Ø Alt Attributes
Ø Title Attributes
Ø Internal Linking
Ø Inserting Google Analytics code
Ø XML Sitemap Generating
Ø Txt Sitemap Generating
Ø Robots.txt
Ø Google Verification code in Meta
Tags
Ø Yahoo Verification code in Meta
Tags
Ø Alexa Verification code in Meta
Tags
Ø Create 404 pages
Ø 301 Redirection [ .htaccess ]
What is Off-Page
Optimization?
Off Page Optimization is the activity that is done on
other sites for our site to increase search engine ranking. Off Page
Optimization activities include directory submission, article submission, forum
discussion, blog posting, press release, blog commenting, white paper
submission and along with this social bookmarking (in digg, delicious, reddit,
stumbleupon) and social media promotion (in facebook, twitter, linkedin). Off
page optimization creates strong back links for our site which not only helps
for search engine ranking but also for drive traffic from sites where we have
done all these submissions.
Ø Search Engine Submission
Ø Social Bookmarking Submission [
Addthis.com ]
Ø Directory Submission [ Dmoz.org.
Google and yahoo ]
Ø Article Submission
Ø Press Release Submission
Ø Forum Posting
Ø Blog Posting and commenting
Ø Creation of Wordpress Blog
Ø Classifieds Posting
Ø Yellowpages Posting
Ø One way Link Submission [
Directory Submission ]
Ø Two Way Link Submission [
Reciprocal ]
Ø Three Way Link Submission
Ø Yahoo Answers Posting
Ø Wiki Anaswers Posting
Ø Answers.com Posting
Ø Creating Hubpages
Ø Squidoo Lenses
Ø Comment Posting
Ø Social Network Profiles [
Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace Contacts...]
Ø Twitter [ Follow-ups ]
Ø Local Business Listing [ Gumtree,
Craiglist ]
Ø RSS Feed Submissions
Ø Image Sharing through Imagesharing
Websites [ Flickr ]
Ø Video Sharing through Videosharing
Websites [ Youtube, google video]
Ø Create"buzz"
Ø Daily Pings
Ø Creating Yahoo Groups
Ø Creating Google Groups
Ø Creating MSN Groups
Ø URL in Visiting Cards, Letter
heads, Email Signature etc.,
Ø Publish News Letters
Ø Create Communities
Ø Email campaigning
Ø Guest books
Social Media Optimization
1. Face
book, Google+, Bharatstudent, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Stumble upon, Digg, and so on
2. Creating
social circle
3. Connecting
with customers
4. Creating
Brand fan pages
5. Business
pages
6. Daily
Active Participation
7. Group
connectivity
8. Getting
feedback with the customers
9. Product
awareness
10. Social sharing
What is Web Page Content
Web page content is nothing but information which we use to provide in the web pages regarding to our web site or blog objective. The web pages which are having much traffic or ranked well because of only one reason that is by having the original and fresh content. As per the Search Engine Optimization norms original content can concur the ranking and search engine results. According to the new Google contextual forms Google is not considering the web pages which are having duplicate content or copy content.
So lets list out some of the very important notes which we need to remember while keeping the content in the web site or a blog.
Here we go …..
1. Content
should be unique
2. Content
should be fresh
3. Content
should not be copied from some where
4. Content
should be grammatically
5. Content
should contain a article
6. Article
should have minimum of 350 words
7. It
should be in a format of Title, Summary and Body
8. If
it is included author biography would be nice
9. Title
of the article must contain keyword
10. Article should contain keywords
with min quantity
11.
If the discussion is about any new
thing or active topic or news would be nice
12.Web page content should be updated
regularly
13.User friendly content are
preferable
What is Search engine submission
Each Engine Submission is a Off Page Optimization process in which we use to submit our web site details to all search engines. Generally we don’t need to submit to all search engines why because all the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN.. Etc will ping web sites in the internet to crawl or boot or index. Why we use to submit to the all search engines is to get faster index by the search engines that means web master is not willing to wait for the search engine to index and he want it to be done in a minimum time. Most of the web master wants to list their sites in the search engines. With this they want to get ranked or listed in the all search engines.
What is URL redirection
URL Redirection is one of the needed thing
in Search Engine Optimization process and it would be needed for various
reasons based on the web master requirements.
Example:
Example.com to www.example.com … you many want to
redirect like this
301
URL redirect for eample.co.in was used to redirect example.co.in to www.example.co.in and the search
engines will se this two as a two different urls as www and non www domains.
What is Web Page analysis in On-Page Optimization
Web page analysis is a initial stage of an
Search Engine Optimization process. Why because we need to analyze our web site
or blog before promoting. We need to make sure every thing is perfect and in
order then only we use to get advantage from SEO Process. Fist of all we need
to be very clear about the web site and its purpose.
Here
we are going to list out some of the important points that has to be remember
or will be doing in web page analysis in the SEO Process…Here we go …
·
Make sure about the Objective of the web
site
·
Maintain fresh content
·
Proper web design
·
Should not contain broken links
·
Take a good care about spamming
·
Proper images and video has to be placed
·
Make impressive content
·
Avoid copy content
·
Maintain Keyword density
·
Research about your business
·
Check for the competitor
·
Prepare a SEO strategy
·
Prepare Goals for SEO
·
Do update your self
What is Site map
Site map is a textually constructed blue print of a web site’s content that will allow readers to navigate through web site and to find required information very easily. Simply we can say the road map of any kind of web site or blog. This site maps are very friendly ( SEO ) for web masters to intimate the search engines to get crawling. Site map contains a list of links included in the URL and meta data of the web site or a blog.
Normally Crawlers find out the web pages from links with in the web site or links from others sites. Site maps provide the complete links in the web site which are required to crawl, means all the information is at one place so we are making this very easy to index by the any search engine.
What is Keyword density
Keyword density is nothing but a keyword or a keyword phrase are how many times repeated in the on page. This means the keyword percentage of repeated one in the web page. Different search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN are considering the keyword density to their internal page rank algorithm.
Let’s list out some points about keyword density and how it would be
1.
Keyword should be related
2.
Should not boost with keywords
3.
Keyword has to be in the content formation
4.
Keyword popularity will maximize the
density of that keyword
5.
If domain don’t have keyword, SEO would be
difficult.
6.
Maintain keyword in browser title
7.
web page must have keyword
When you follow all the above things in your web site or a blog , you can easily find out the good keyword density to rank well. Use keywords in the proper and relevance content in your we pages , the density of the keyword will grow respectively.
What is Keyword Analysis
Keyword analysis is a unique process of
identifying the right and related keywords that we will use for our
web site or blog. Those will get the targeted traffic to the targeted keywords
in search engines.
Keyword
analysis is the heart of the On Page Optimization in Search Engine
Optimization. It will be the starting stage of digital marketing campaigns.
Keyword analysis are very helpful to maximize the conversions, identify the new
trends of market, optimization speed and ROI. Most of the people use the Google
adwords tool to identify the targeted keywords for any web site or a blog.Here we are going to discuss about some important things which will help us in the keywords selection.
Increase conversions: Optimize your identified keywords to maximize the conversions rate and to get good ROI.
Eye Trends: Here we should acquire the knowledge of multiple aspects of your business market.
Prioritize Your Time: Make sure you will put all your time on Optimization which are giving you biggest impact on your business.
What is Alt tag suggestions
The Alt tag suggestions are likely used to mention the title, keywords and description to the images in the web site or a blog. In the past all the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and so on are considering the Alt tag suggestions in the ranking method. But now a days the priority is very low and even though it will be having some what helpful to our SEO. Even though you are having a rich content web site or blog you can use this alt tags to your images , it will get some impression by the end users or content lovers.
Here we have list of tips need to follow in the tags …
lets play ….
1.
Alt tags are used for images
2.
Alt tags are title, keywords and
description to the image
3.
Use keywords in the title
4.
Do not boost with keywords.
5.
Use fresh content
6.
Every image should contain alt tags
7.
maximize image visibility
What is Anchor Text Optimization
Anchor Text is a visible hyper linked text to another web page in your web site or a blog. That means the word which you are using to give hyperlink it will be representing another link which is having information about that particular word.
<a href=”http://www.example.com/”>example</a>
OR
<a
href=”http://www.example.com/”
title=”example”>example</a>OR
<a href=”http://www.example.com/” target=”_blank” >example</a>
OR
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.example.com/">Example</a>The above example can show us how the hyper link would be looks like..
here we are representing the example keyword to www.example.com that means if you click on the link it will take you to that respective linked web site. It is a kind of information representing like source to destination. We can use this hyper linking as internally or externally. This concept will be used in On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization as well as. In the On Page Optimization we will use this hyper linking for internally linking in the web page content. In the Off Page Optimization we use this for link building techniques.
About Title:
The HTML Title is the text within <title> tag that can
be found on the head of the HTML code. As it is the key element that appears in
search results, your web pages’ titles are very important for your SEO strategy
for two main reasons:
Title relevancy is taken into account by the algorithms of
Search Engines.
Good descriptive titles increase the click through rate.
Here are some tips in order to enhance your website’s
visibility through title optimization:
1. Write short Titles
Google has a maximum title length of 64-70 characters. Do
not make the title longer, because Google cuts down its display in the search
results. Use the Web SEO Analysis Tool to check your title’s length.
2. Identify your Keywords
Indentify the keyphrases of your web page’s content. List
down all possible words describing the content of your page. Step in the shoes
of the user and list all the relevant search terms that he/she may formulate.
The words used in your title will be displayed in search engine results as a
clickable link. Therefore it should contain your page’s main keywords. You can
use the Web SEO Analysis Tool to find how relevant your Title is with the rest
of your page.
3. The important goes first
Start your title by adding the important keywords that you
found during research. The words appearing first are considered to be more
important.
4. Use targeted keywords
Choose specific keywords for your title in order to have
more targeted traffic.
5. Be descriptive
Make sure that your title summarizes the content of your
web page. In this way users will know what the topic of your page is, when it
appears in the search results. This will help you decrease the bounce rate and
increase the click through rate.
6. Create unique titles
Make sure you use unique titles for each web page.
Duplicate titles might lead to duplicate content issues.
7. Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing or any other spam technique should be
avoided. Even if you manage to rank first, an “over optimized” title will
reduce your click through rate.
Don’t forget that you should always write webpage titles
and content that is attractive to users! By trying to achieve high rankings,
SEOs often forget that the most important factor of our success is the users’
“click” on our website link.
8. If it makes
sense to
do so, use your title as the headline of your webpage –
users expect to find
the title on the page and it also reinforces the keywords
you’re using.
9. Getting your
brand/site name in there is a good idea for establishing
trust and expanding
your footprint, but you should generally put it at the end
of the tag after a
vertical line so the search focus is on your keywords.
10. Your title will
end up
as a link in the search results, so make it compellingly
clickable.
About Meta Description:
The meta description of a web page is basically the 2-3
sentence summary or synopsis of what the page is about. It is like the
"executive summary" of the page. It is one of several types of meta
tags of a web page.
The meta description is visible to users... not on the web
page itself, but on search engine results pages. Specifically, it is the 2-3
lines of regular, black text that appears right below the blue, underlined
hyperlink text on Google search results pages. Because it is visible to
potential visitors, the meta description should be somewhat "salesy"
to entice searchers to visit your site.
Google typically only shows the first 150 characters of
the meta description. Therefore, Store Coach recommends keeping your web pages'
meta description to a maximum of 150 characters. The meta description should be
written in complete-sentence format and should follow the rules of grammar.
As mentioned above, the meta description should be focused
on convincing potential visitors that your site is worth visiting. But keep in
mind that Google and other search engines also use the meta description to
determine what the web page is about. Therefore, for SEO purposes, the meta
description should reinforce the page's meta title by including 1-3 more
instances of the keyword phrase(s) the page is targeting. If possible, try to
use both the singular and plural versions of the keyword phrases. But make sure
that the meta description is natural and flows well; never engage in
keyword-stuffing. And never put Google before the customer with the meta
description.
What are Meta Tags?
Meta Tags are HTML Tag. Meta
tags are most important factor for SEO .why we are using Meta Tags are Google
crawl easily for a particular site and also targeting Keywords Position and
more....
Boost Your Alexa
Page Rank With Fake Traffic
Alexa rank lets us know the quantity of traffic a
specialized website is getting, but it compares your online site traffic
because of the sites anywhere. Should your site has good alexa rank,
advertisers may be easily convinced to advertise with your site. (Text Link
adds can be described as company which can help you in acquiring many
advertisers on your behalf blog, if your alexa rank is useful). Sites with Good
alexa rank get high ranking relating to the search engines like bing.
Alexa Ranking is a site ranking assigned by Alexa Internet
to measure websites’ popularity. It statements to have an availability of
factors in deciding the blog popularity, but really it all depends mainly on
usage data collected because of the Alexa toolbar.
The greater the ranking is, smaller number is a rank
given. Influenced by Alexa, Google (Alexa Ranking 1) is easily the most popular
website on the net, followed by Yahoo(2), Facebook(3), and Youtube(4).
You will find numbers of how to raise your Alexa rank.
Tip#1 Install Alexa
Toolbar
First, it is advisable to Install Alexa toolbar along with
your blog post for the reason that site. You might already know, Alexa rank is
set on such basis as the material collected via the Alexa toolbar. About the
click on the visitor which has it installed might be counted when he visits
your website. As the webmaster from a personal website, first of all you must
do may be to set it up on your browser and also yuor web blog to remain your
house page making sure that every single time you open IE, you make a bit
contribution to your own website for Alexa rank improvement.
Tip#2 Install Alexa Toolbar -Again
Second, Install Alexa toolbar on all computers you’re able
to touch. You can even yuor web blog while the main page. Push people you’re
friends with to run Alexa toolbar.
Tip#3 Install Alexa Widget
Third, you want to arrange an Alexa counter widget on your
own blog. Within the next clicked, it will likely be counted as traffic by
Alexa, set up one that clicks it won’t install the Alexa toolbar.
Tip#4 Write Article On Alexa
Fourth, you can write some articles about Alexa onto your
blog or website. You can even open an Alexa column. Many webmasters wish to see
these false claims. In case you write good articles, they’ve been prone to republish
or chek out them, course . would bring you traffic so because of this improve
Alexa rank.
Tip#5 Use Webmaster Forums
Fifth, you must have to travel to where webmasters return
to frequently and post the Link to your web page there. Generally, webmasters
have Alexa toolbar installed. Have a trip into a webmaster forums to put in
writing posts promoting your site.
Tip#6 Promote Your
Blog On Alexa
Sixth, let your folks prefer your web blog on Alexa
website. It isn’t really sure what amount of this can benefit your blog’s Alexa
rank, marketing promotions campaigns to experience a good rating.
Tip#7 Write Good
Article For Webmasters
Seventh, you can easily write a column that webmasters may
be serious about, such as an Seo column, to get more webmasters to talk to your
site.
Tip#8 Use Alexa
Redirection
Eighth, your able to use the Alexa redirection function.
Tip#9 Participate In Foreign Forums
Ninth, If at all possible, take a look at some foreign
forums or websites to build up your web site, for foreign surfers often install
the Alexa toolbar.
Tip#10 Advertise
Tenth, In case you have sufficient funds, you’ll consider
buying some pay-per-click ads to your blog. That literally brings abundant IP.
Tip#11 Use Alexa Relevant Content
Eleventh, you’ll be able to links to Alexa relevant
content as part of your more popular articles for your blog, or use Alexa
redirection to back-link to other places with the blog.
These are some of the best kept secret to increase alexa
ranking, If you have some more tips and tricks to increase alexa ranking.
Kindly inform us, so that we can update ourself.
Algorithm
An algorithm is a set of finite, ordered steps for solving
a mathematical problem. Each Search Engine uses a proprietary algorithm set to
calculate the relevance of its indexed web pages to your particular Query. The
result of this process is a list of sites ranked in the order that the search
engine deemed most relevant. Search engine algorithms are closely guarded in
order to prevent exploitation of algorithmic results. Search algorithms are
also changed frequently to incorporate new data and improve relevancy.
Algorithmic Results
Algorithmic results are the ranked listings search engines
provide in response to a Query. They are often referred to as Organic Listings
in contrast to Paid Listings because their rank is based on relevancy rather
than advertising revenue paid to the search engine. However, paid listings do
appear alongside algorithmic results in many search engines, provided they are
relevant. Improving a website's unpaid algorithmic results is known as Natural
Search Engine Optimization.
Alt Tag/Alt Text
An alt tag is the HTML text that appears while an image is
loading or when a cursor is positioned over an image. Alt text is useful in
Search Engine Optimization because it can include keywords that a search engine
looks for in response to a query.
Analytics
Analytics refers to all the technology, programming, and
data used in Search Engine Marketing to analyze a website's performance or the
success of an Internet marketing campaign.
Anchor Text
Also known as link text, anchor text is the visible,
clickable text between the HTML anchor and tags. Clicking on anchor text
activates a Hyperlink to another web site. Anchor text is very important in
Search Engine Optimization because search engine algorithms consider the
Hyperlink keywords as relevant to the Landing Page.
Backlinks
Also known as back link, backward link, or inbound links,
backlinks are all of the links on other websites that direct the users who
click on them to your site. Backlinks can significantly improve your site's
search rankings, particularly if they contain Anchor Text keywords relevant to
your site and are located on sites with high Page Rank.
Banned
Also known as delisted or blacklisted, a banned site is a
URL that has been removed from a search engine's Index, typically for engaging
in Black Hat SEO. Banned sites are ignored by search engines.
Banner Ad
A banner ad is a rectangular graphic advertisement. Banner
ads are one of the commonest forms of online advertising. Their sizes vary, but
most measure 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high. Clicking on a banner ad will
direct you to the advertiser's website or a designated Landing Page.
Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO is the term used for unethical or deceptive
optimization techniques. This includes Spam, Cloaking, or violating search
engine rules in any way. If a search engine discovers a site engaging in black
hat SEO it will remove that site from its Index.
Blacklisted
Also known as banned or delisted, a blacklisted site is a
URL that has been removed from a search engine's Index, typically for engaging
in Black Hat SEO. Blacklisted sites are ignored by search engines.
Broken Link
Also known as a dead link, a broken link is a link that no
longer points to an active destination or Landing Page. Search engines dislike
broken links. Keeping all of your site's links active is an important part of
ongoing optimization.
Click Fraud
Click Fraud is the illegal practice of manipulating
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) revenue sharing agreements. There
are numerous types of click fraud, but in a typical scenario the webmaster of a
site that earns money from each click of the advertising links it publishes
pays individuals a small fee to click those links. Companies thus pay for
advertising to clients who had no intention of buying from them. Some companies
have filed class action lawsuits alleging that ad publishers such as Google and
Yahoo! have failed to aggressively confront click fraud because they benefit
from increased CPC revenue.
Click-Through
Click-through refers to a single instance of a user
clicking on an advertising link or site listing and moving to a Landing Page. A
higher Click-Through Rate (CTR) is one of the primary goals of Search Engine
Optimization.
Click-Through Rate
(CTR)
Click-through rate is the percentage of users who click on
an advertising link or search engine site listing out of the total number of
people who see it, i.e. four click-throughs out of ten views is a 40% CTR.
Cloaking
Cloaking is the presentation of alternative pages to a
search engine Spider so that it will record different content for a URL than
what a human browser would see. Cloaking is typically done to achieve a higher
search engine position or to trick users into visiting a site. In such cases
cloaking is considered to be Black Hat SEO and the offending URL could be
Blacklisted. However, cloaking is sometimes used to deliver personalized
content based on a browser's IP address and/or user-agent HTTP header. Such
cloaking should only be practiced with a search engine's knowledge or it could
be construed as black hat cloaking.
Contextual Link
Inventory (CLI)
Search engines/advertising networks use their contextual
link inventory to match keyword-relevant text-link advertising with site
content. CLI is generated based on listings of website pages with content that
the ad-server deems a relevant keyword match. Ad networks further refine CLI
relevancy by monitoring the Click-Through Rate of the displayed ads.
Conversion
Conversion is the term used for any significant action a
user takes while visiting a site, i.e. making a purchase, requesting
information, or registering for an account.
Conversion Analytics
Conversion analytics is a branch of Analytics concerned
specifically with conversion-related information from organic and paid search
engine traffic, such as the keywords converts used in their queries, the type
of conversion that resulted, landing page paths, search engine used, etc.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the next step up from Click-Through
Rate. It's the percentage of all site visitors who "convert" (make a
purchase, register, request information, etc.). If three users buy products and
one user requests a catalogue out of ten daily visitors, a site's conversion
rate is 40%.
Cost-Per-Acquisition
(CPA)
Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) is a return on investment model
in which return is measured by dividing total click/marketing costs by the
number of Conversions achieved. Total acquisition costs / number of conversions
= CPA. CPA is also used as a synonym for Cost-Per-Action.
Cost-Per-Action
(CPA)
In a cost-per-action advertising revenue system,
advertisers are charged a Conversion-based fee, i.e. each time a user buys a
product, opens an account, or requests a free trial. CPA is also known as
cost-per-acquisition, though the term cost-per-acquisition can be confusing
because it also refers to a return on investment model.
Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
Also known as pay-per-click or pay-for-performance,
cost-per-click is an advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad
networks in which advertising companies pay an agreed amount for each click of
their ads. This Click-Through Rate-based payment structure is considered by
some advertisers to be more cost-effective than the Cost-Per-Thousand payment
structure, but it can at times lead to Click Fraud.
Cost-Per-Thousand
(CPM)
Also known as cost-per-impression or CPM for
cost-per-mille (mille is the Latin word for thousand), cost-per-thousand is an
advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad networks in which
advertising companies pay an agreed amount for every 1,000 users who see their
ads, regardless of whether a click-through or conversion is achieved. CPM is
typically used for Banner Ad sales, while Cost-Per-Click is typically used for
text link advertising.
Crawler
Also known as Spider or Robot, a crawler is a search
engine program that "crawls" the web, collecting data, following
links, making copies of new and updated sites, and storing URLs in the search
engine's Index. This allows search engines to provide faster and more
up-to-date listings.
Delisted
Also known as banned or blacklisted, a delisted site is a
URL that has been removed from a search engine's Index, typically for engaging
in Black Hat SEO. Delisted sites are ignored by search engines.
Description Tag
Also known as a meta description tag, a description tag is
a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a
page's content for search engine Index purposes. The description tag is not
displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the search
engine's listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less importance
to description tags in lieu of actual page content.
Directory
A directory is an Index of websites compiled by people
rather than a Crawler. Directories can be general or divided into specific
categories and subcategories. A directory's servers provide relevant lists of
registered sites in response to user queries. Directory Registration is thus an
important method for building inbound links and improving SEO performance.
However, the decision to include a site and its directory rank or
categorization is determined by directory editors rather than an Algorithm.
Some directories accept free submissions while others require payment for
listing. The most popular directories include Yahoo!, The Open Directory
Project, and LookSmart.
Doorway Page
Also known as a gateway page or jump page, a doorway page
is a URL with minimal content designed to rank highly for a specific keyword
and redirect visitors to a homepage or designated Landing Page. Some search
engines frown on doorway pages as a softer form of Cloaking or Spam. However, doorway
pages may be legitimate landing pages designed to measure the success of a
promotional campaign, and they are commonly allowed in Paid Listings.
Dynamic Content
Dynamic content is web content such as Search Engine
Results Pages (SERPS) that are generated or changed based on database
information or user activity. Web pages that remain the same for all visitors
in every context contain "static content." Many e-commerce sites
create dynamic content based on purchase history and other factors. Search engines
have a difficult time indexing dynamic content if the page includes a session
ID number, and will typically ignore URLs that contain the variable
"?".Search engines will punish sites that use deceptive or invasive
means to create dynamic content.
Flash Optimization
Flash is a vector graphics-based animation program
developed by Macromedia. Most corporate sites feature Flash movies/animation,
yet because search engine Crawlers were designed to index HTML text, sites that
favor Flash over text are difficult or even impossible for crawlers to read.
Flash Optimization is the process of reworking the Flash movie and surrounding
HTML code to be more "crawlable" for Search Engines.
Gateway Page
Also known as a doorway page or jump page, a gateway page
is a URL with minimal content designed to rank highly for a specific keyword
and redirect visitors to a homepage or designated Landing Page. Some search
engines frown on gateway pages as a softer form of Cloaking or Spam. However,
gateway pages may be legitimate landing pages designed to measure the success
of a promotional campaign, and they are commonly allowed in Paid Listings.
Geographical
Targeting
Geographical targeting is the focusing of Search Engine
Marketing on states, counties, cities and neighborhoods that are important to a
company's business. One basic aspect of geographical targeting is adding the
names of relevant cities or streets to a site's keywords, i.e. Hyde Street Chicago
apartments. Another important element of geo-targeting is increasing your
site's presence on Local Search engines.
Geographic
Segmentation
Geographic segmentation is the use of Analytics to
categorize a site's web traffic by the physical locations from which it
originated.
Google AdSense
Google AdSense is an ad-serving program operated by Google
that provides relevant text, image, and video-based advertisements to enrolled
site owners. Advertisers register via Google AdWords and pay for ads on a
Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Thousand or Cost-Per-Action basis. This revenue is
shared with Google AdSense host sites, typically on a PPC basis (which
sometimes leads to Click Fraud). Google uses its search Algorithms and
Contextual Link Inventory to display the most appropriate ads based on site
content, Query relevancy, ad "quality scores," and other factors.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords is the Keyword Submission program that
determines the advertising rates and keywords used in the Google AdSense
program. Advertisers bid on the keywords that are relevant to their businesses.
Ranked ads then appear as sponsored links on Google Search Engine Results Pages
(SERPS) and Google AdSense host sites.
Graphical Search
Inventory (GSI)
Graphical Search Inventory is the visual equivalent of
Contextual Link Inventory. GSI is non-text-based advertising such as Banner
Ads, pop-up ads, browser toolbars, animation, sound, video and other media that
is synchronized to relevant Keyword queries.
Gray Hat SEO
Gray hat SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization
strategies that fall in between Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO. Gray hat SEO
techniques can be legitimate in some cases and illegitimate in others. Such
techniques include Doorway Pages, Gateway Pages, Cloaking and duplicate
content.
Hidden Text
Hidden text is a generally obsolete form of Black Hat SEO
in which pages are filled with a large amount of text that is the same color as
the background, rendering keywords invisible to the human eye but detectable to
a search engine Crawler. Multiple Title Tags or HTML comments are alternative
hidden text techniques. Hidden text is easily detectable by search engines and
will result in Blacklisting or reduced Rank.
Hit
Hit is a somewhat misleading measure of traffic to a web
site. One hit is recorded for each file request in a web server's access log.
If a user visits a page with four images, one hit will be recorded for each
graphic image file plus another for the page's HTML file. A better measure of
traffic volume is the number of pages/HTML files accessed.
HTML
The acronym HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, the
authoring language used to create pages on the World Wide Web. HTML is a set of
codes or HTML tags that provide a web browser with directions on how to
structure a web page's information and features.
Hyperlink
Also known as link or HTML link, a hyperlink is an image
or portion of text that when clicked on by a user opens another web page or
jumps the browser to a different portion of the current page. Inbound Links
with keyword-relevant Link Text are an important part of Search Engine
Optimization Strategy.
Index
An index is a Search Engine's database. It contains all of
the information that a Crawler has identified, particularly copies of World
Wide Web pages. When a user performs a Query, the search engine uses its
indexed pages and Algorithm set to provide a ranked list of the most relevant
pages. In the case of a Directory, the index consists of titles and summaries
of registered sites that have been categorized by the directory's editors.
Inbound Links
Also known as back link, backward link, or backlinks,
inbound links are all of the links on other websites that direct the users who
click on them to your site. Inbound links can significantly improve your site's
search rankings, particularly if they contain Anchor Text keywords relevant to
your site and are located on sites with high Page Rank.
Impression
Also known as a page view, an impression is a single
instance of an online advertisement being displayed. Search engines and ad
networks use impression statistics to charge advertisers on a Cost-Per-Thousand
(CPM) basis.
Internet Marketing
On a fundamental level, Internet marketing is using the
Internet to advertise, communicate and sell goods and services. On an advanced
level, Internet marketing is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which
is the use of targeted keywords, crawler-friendly site architecture, Search
Engine Submissions and a well-developed link network to improve a site's
Position, Page Rank and Click-Through Rate.
Internet Marketing
Consultant
Also known as SEO professionals or SEO specialists,
Internet marketing consultants use their knowledge of Search Engine
Optimization Strategy to improve their clients' Position and Page Rank.
Internet Promotion
Also known as search engine promotion, website marketing
or website promotion, Internet promotion refers to all methods employed by a
company or individual to promote a website and increase its Position and Page
Rank.
Keyword
Also known as search terms or query terms, keywords are
the word(s) or phrase(s) a user enters into a search engine's Query box. A
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranks indexed sites according to how relevant
the Search Engine deems them to the searched keywords. One of the most
important SEO Strategies companies can employ is to optimize their site pages
with content that contains targeted keywords relevant to their products or
industry.
Keyword Marketing
Keyword marketing is the use of keyword-optimized content
and keyword-specific Link Text to emphasize a site's relevancy to those terms
and thereby increase Rank for related web queries. Keyword marketing can also
be done through keyword-based ad programs such as Google AdSense. Keyword
marketing is an essential component of Search Engine Optimization.
Keyword Submission
Keyword submission is an all-inclusive term for the
keyword research/selection, bid cost assessment and budgeting that companies
undertake to begin Pay-Per-Click keyword campaigns with advertising networks
such as Google AdWords, Yahoo! Sponsored Search and Microsoft AdCenter.
Landing Page
The landing page is the page on which a visitor
"lands" after clicking a search engine listing, email link, Banner
Ad, Cost-Per-Click ad, or other ad/link. The landing page can be a site's
homepage, but is usually a page designed to appeal to users who Click-Through a
specific ad or link. Landing pages are also used to monitor site traffic and
measure an advertising campaign's success. Well-designed landing pages that are
relevant to a user's keyword query will improve Conversion Rates and play a
critical role in Search Engine Marketing.
Link
Also known as hyperlink or HTML link, a link is an image
or portion of text that when clicked on by a user opens another web page or
jumps the browser to a different portion of the current page. Inbound Links
with keyword-relevant Link Text are an important part of Search Engine
Optimization Strategy.
Link Baiting
Link baiting is the creation of content that incites users
to link to your page from another website. The types of link bait vary
tremendously, but they include highly informative articles or news stories,
useful resources and sometimes controversial or sensationalistic content. Link
baiting is a White Hat SEO technique used to help a site improve its Link
Popularity and Page Rank. Some sites use link baiting as the centerpiece of a
Website Marketing campaign.
Link Exchange
A link exchange is a quid pro quo arrangement or
reciprocal link exchange between two sites. Reciprocal links usually lead to
the home page of the associate site.
Link Farm
A link farm is a webpage or group of webpages that exist
solely to increase the number of Backlinks in a site's link network. A link
farm is meant to increase a site's PageRank or popularity and thus improve its
search engine Position. However, link farms are considered a form of Spam and
sites that rely on them are penalized by search engines.
Link Popularity
Link popularity is the measure of how popular a webpage is
by the number of Backlinks it has. However, link popularity is not solely a
matter of quantity. Page Rank is achieved when Backlinks are located on
reputable, relevant sites rather than so-called Link Farms. Most search engines
use link popularity as a factor in their Algorithmic Results.
Link Text
Also known as anchor text, link text is the visible,
clickable text between the HTML anchor andtags. Clicking on link text activates
a Hyperlink to another web site. Link text is very important in Search Engine
Optimization because search engine algorithms consider the hyperlink keywords
as relevant to the Landing Page.
Listings
Listings are the indexed sites that appear in ranked order
on a Search Engine Results Page in response to a user Query.
Local Search
Local search refers to both the addition of geographical
keywords (cities, streets, etc.) to Search Terms and the use of Yellow
Pages-type Search Engines such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Local and AskCity to find
business services in a particular zip code. Search Engine Placement Services
use local SEO to help traditional "brick and mortar businesses"
connect with customers in their community.
Marketing Analytics
Marketing analytics is a branch of Analytics concerned
specifically with marketing-related information from organic and paid search
engine traffic, such as Unique Visitors, keyword-generated sales,
Cost-Per-Click advertising, Click Fraud, Search Engine Marketing, etc.
Meta Description Tag
Also known as a description Tag, a meta description tag is
a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a
page's content for search engine Index purposes. The meta description tag is
not displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the
search engine's listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less
importance to meta description tags in lieu of actual page content.
Meta Keywords Tag
A meta keywords tag provides search engines with a list of
keywords that are relevant to a webpage. This can improve search engine Rank
for a page by ensuring it's properly indexed. However, search engines are now
giving less importance to meta keywords tags in lieu of actual page content.
Meta Robots Tag
A meta robots tag (named for a search engine Crawler or
Robot) lets page authors prevent their webpages from being added to a search
engine's Index. Alternatives to a meta robots tag are Robots.txt files and
password protection.
Meta Search Engine
A meta search engine derives its listings by running user
queries through multiple other search engines and then summarizing the results.
A meta search engine does not maintain its own Index. Listings are displayed by
meta search engines either in aggregate or categorized by search engine source.
An example of a meta search engine is Dogpile.com.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are HTML tags placed in a
webpage that contain information for Crawlers and web browsers. Types of meta
tag information include page descriptions (Description Tag), page-relevant
keywords (Meta Keywords Tag), whether a page can be indexed (Meta Robots Tag),
copyright, page refresh dates and redirection instructions.
Natural Listings (or
Natural Optimization)
Also known as organic listings, natural listings are
webpage listings that appear on a Search Engine Results Page solely because the
search engine Algorithm deems them relevant to the Query. Natural listings can
contain Paid Listings, but only if they fulfill the same requirements as
natural listings. The best way to improve a site's natural listing Position is
through Natural Search Engine Optimization.
Natural Search
Engine Optimization
Also known as natural optimization, organic search engine
optimization or white hat SEO, natural search engine optimization is the use of
keyword-focused copy and tags, Crawler-friendly site architecture, Search
Engine Submissions and a quality Backlinks network to improve a site's
Position, Page Rank and Click-Through Rate. Because about 80% of web users look
at Natural Listings first, natural SEO offers a much greater chance of
long-term business success than Paid Listings or Pay-Per-Click ad campaigns.
Optimization
Services
Also known as Internet promotion, site optimization, or
search engine placement service, optimization services are all of the methods a
Search Engine Optimization Company uses to improve a site's Position and Page
Rank and increase its Click-Through Rate and Conversion Rate.
Organic Listings (or
Organic Optimization)
Also known as natural listings, organic listings are
webpage listings that appear on a Search Engine Results Page solely because the
search engine Algorithm deems them relevant to the Query. Organic listings can
contain Paid Listings, but only if they fulfill the same requirements as
organic listings. The best way to improve a site's organic listing Position is
through Natural Search Engine Optimization.
Outbound Links
Outbound links are all links from a particular webpage
that lead to other pages, including pages in the same domain. An excessive
number of outbound links can damage a site's Search Engine Positioning because
a Spider may perceive it as a Link Farm.
Page Rank (or PR)
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm developed by Google
founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. A number from one (lowest-0) to ten
(highest-10) is assigned to a webpage as a measure of its importance,
specifically the likelihood that a user will arrive at that page by randomly
clicking Links. PageRank is not the same thing as Rank.
Paid Inclusion
Paid inclusion is an advertising program offered by some
search engines in which a page is guaranteed inclusion in the Index in exchange
for a fee. Unlike Paid Placement, the rank of paid inclusion pages is
determined solely by the search engine Algorithm. Paid inclusion sites may or
may not be labeled as advertisements depending on Search Engine policy.
Paid Listings
Paid Listings, as opposed to Natural Listings or Organic
Listings, are sites that appear on a Results Page because money was paid to the
search engine for inclusion and/or position. Paid listings is used as an
all-inclusive term for the practices of Paid Inclusion and Paid Placement.
Paid Placement
Paid placement is a program in which advertisers' listings
are guaranteed to appear on a Results Page when particular Keywords are
searched. The ranking of paid placement listings is determined by competitive
bidding. Unlike Paid Inclusion listings, paid placement listings are usually
displayed separately from Natural Listings and are labeled as advertisements or
sponsored links. Google and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) are two
of the largest paid placement search networks.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Also known as cost-per-click or pay-for-performance,
pay-per-click is an advertising revenue system used by search engines and ad
networks in which advertising companies pay an agreed amount for each click of their
ads. This Click-Through Rate-based payment structure is considered by some
advertisers to be more cost-effective than the Cost-Per-Thousand payment
structure, but it has at times led to Click Fraud.
Position
Also known as rank, position is the place a website
occupies relative to the first listing on an Algorithmic Results page in
response to a Keyword query. The first page displays Listings in the one
through ten positions, the second page eleven through twenty, etc. Businesses
trying to get their site into a top ten position will often employ a
Professional Search Engine Optimization company. Consumer studies have shown
that most search engine users click only on sites that occupy the top ten
positions.
Position Reporting
Position reporting is the monitoring of daily changes in
search engine Position for indexed URLs that have been optimized for specific
keywords by a Search Engine Optimization Company. Position reporting is also
used to generate a Search Engine Ranking Report.
Professional Search
Engine Optimization
Professional search engine optimization is the
modification of a website by an SEO company in order to increase its Position
and Page Rank and improve its Click-Through Rate and Conversion Rate.
Query
A query is a question or instance of questioning. A search
engine query is a user's request for the information (i.e. webpages) in a
search engine's Index that is most relevant to a Keyword or set of Search
Terms. Query is sometimes used to mean the actual keywords a user enters in a search
box.
Rank
Also known as position, rank is the place a website
occupies relative to the first listing on an Algorithmic Results page in
response to a Keyword query. The first page displays Listings in the one
through ten positions, the second page eleven through twenty, etc. Businesses
trying to get their site into a top-ten rank will often employ a Professional
Search Engine Optimization company. Consumer studies have shown that most
search engine users click only on sites that occupy a top-ten rank.
Reciprocal Link
Exchange
A reciprocal link exchange is a quid pro quo arrangement
or link exchange between two sites. Reciprocal links usually lead to the home
page of the associate site.
Registration
Also known as search engine registration or search engine
submission, registration is the submission of a URL to a Directory or Search
Engine for inclusion in its Index. Registration is usually free but can also
require payment. Registration is a basic but important part of Search Engine
Optimization.
Results Page
Also known as search engine results page, the results page
is the collection of ranked Listings displayed in response to a search engine
Query.
Robot
Also known as Crawler or Spider, a robot is a search
engine program that "crawls" the web, collecting data, following
links, making copies of new and updated sites, and storing URLs in the search
engine's Index. This allows search engines to provide faster and more
up-to-date listings.
Robots.txt
Also known as robots exclusion protocol, Robots.txt is a
text file stored in a site's root directory that tells a search engine Crawler
which site pages and sub-folders should not be included in the search engine
Index. However, there is no guarantee that a Crawler will comply with this
request. Robots.txt is an alternative to a Meta Robots Tag or password
protection.
SEO Professional
Also known as Internet marketing consultant or SEO
specialist, SEO professionals use their knowledge of Search Engine Optimization
Strategy to improve their clients' Position and Page Rank.
SEO Services
SEO services are all of the tools used by a Professional
Search Engine Optimization company, including Analytics and Keyword Marketing.
SEO Specialist
Also known as Internet marketing consultant or SEO
professional, SEO specialists use their knowledge of Search Engine Optimization
Strategy to improve their clients' Position and Page Rank.
SEO Strategies
SEO strategies are the techniques used in Search Engine
Optimization to improve a site's Position and Page Rank and increase its
Click-Through Rate. A few SEO strategies are keyword research and content
writing, optimized HTML code, and improved Geographical Targeting.
Search Engine
A search engine is a website that enables users to Query
an Index of stored webpages gathered by a Crawler for information relevant to
specific criteria expressed via a Keyword or Search Terms. The Rank of
information/websites on the corresponding Search Engine Results Pages is
determined by relevancy as measured by the search engine's Algorithm and/or
payment made to the search engine by indexed sites. Sites ranked solely by
relevancy are known as Natural Listings or Organic Listings in contrast to Paid
Listings.
Search Engine
Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing is an inclusive term for all
techniques used to market a website via search engines, including Pay-Per-Click
advertising and Natural Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine
Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)
is a non-profit professional association founded in 2003 to increase awareness
of the benefits of search engine marketing and provide educational resources to
members and consumers.
Search Engine
Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the modification of a
website for the purpose of improving its natural Rank on Search Engine Results
Pages. This is done through a combination of SEO strategies such as directory
and search engine Submission, website optimization, content writing and improved
Link quality. Please see our SEO services for details.
Search Engine
Optimization Company (SEO Company)
A search engine optimization company employs SEO
Strategies to improve a website's Search Engine Placement.
Search Engine
Optimization Consultants
Also known as SEO professionals or SEO specialists, search
engine optimization consultants analyze a website's Position and Keyword
strength and offer solutions for improvement.
Search Engine
Optimization Software Systems
Search engine optimization software systems enable
marketers to generate site data and automatically customize Submission
schedules. However, automated submissions should generally be avoided in favor
of submissions catered to each search engine's rules.
Search Engine
Optimization Strategy
Search engine optimization strategy refers to the specific
optimization plan an SEO company employs for the site promotion of an
individual client.
Search Engine
Placement
Search engine placement means the tactics used by Site
Optimization firms to improve their clients' Rank. The term search engine
placement is sometimes used to mean the Position of a website on a Results
Page.
Search Engine
Placement Services
Also known as Internet promotion, optimization services or
site optimization, search engine placement services are all of the methods a
Search Engine Optimization Company uses to improve a site's Position and Page
Rank and increase its Click-Through Rate and Conversion Rate.
Search Engine
Positioning
The term search engine positioning can be used in two
different ways. The first is to describe the ordering process of indexed
websites being ranked by a search engine Algorithm in response to a Query. The
second refers to the use of Search Engine Optimization to achieve a higher
search engine Position.
Search Engine
Promotion
Also known as Internet promotion, website marketing or
website promotion, Internet promotion refers to all methods employed by a
company or individual to promote a website and increase its Position and
PageRank.
Search Engine
Ranking Report
A search engine ranking report is a monthly, weekly or
daily report of the Position of a company's website Listing in relation to
their top Keywords. Position Reporting enables companies to monitor the success
of an SEO strategy or Cost-Per-Click advertising campaign.
Search Engine
Registration
Also known as search engine submission or web submission,
search engine registration is the submission of a URL to a Directory or Search
Engine for inclusion in its Index. Registration is usually free but can also
require payment. Search engine registration is a basic but important part of
Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine
Results Page (SERPs)
Also known as a results page, the search engine results
page is the collection of ranked Listings displayed in response to a search
engine Query.
Search Engine
Submission
Also known as search engine registration or web
submission, search engine submission is the submission of a URL to a Directory
or Search Engine for inclusion in its Index. Registration is usually free but
can also require payment. Search engine submission is a basic but important
part of Search Engine Optimization.
Search Terms
Also known as keywords or query terms, search terms are
the word(s) or phrase(s) a user enters into a search engine's Query box. A
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranks indexed sites according to how relevant
the Search Engine deems them to the search terms that were queried. One of the
most important SEO Strategies companies can employ is to optimize their site
pages with content that contains targeted search terms relevant to their
products or industry.
Shopping Search
Shopping search engines or search engines with a shopping
feature (such as Google Product Search, formerly known as Froogle) allow users
to comparison shop by providing lists of sellers and prices in response to a
product Query. Some shopping search sites require Paid Inclusion or offer Paid
Placement.
Site Optimization
Also known as Internet promotion, optimization services or
search engine placement service, site optimization refers to all of the methods
a Search Engine Optimization Company uses to improve a site's Position and Page
Rank and increase its Click-Through Rate and Conversion Rate.
Spam
Spam refers to any and all Search Engine Marketing
techniques that violate search engine guidelines or attempt to gain increased
Rank for a site using content that is irrelevant, deceptive or of little value
to users. Types of spam include Hidden Text, content that contains nonsensical
Keyword repetition, deceptive Cloaking or numerous Doorway Pages that redirect
users to the same Landing Page. If a search engine detects spamming the
offending site will be Blacklisted or lose Position. Spam is a Black Hat SEO
technique.
Spider
Also known as Crawler or Robot, a spider is a search
engine program that "crawls" the web, collecting data, following
links, making copies of new and updated sites, and storing URLs in the search
engine's Index. This allows search engines to provide faster and more up-to-date
listings.
Submission
Also known as search engine registration or search engine
submission, submission is the providing of a URL to a Directory or Search
Engine for inclusion in its Index. Submission is usually free but can also
require payment. Submission is a basic but important part of Search Engine
Optimization.
Title Tags
A title tag is an HTML tag which contains a sentence of
text describing the contents of its associated webpage. Title tags are a very
important part of Search Engine Optimization because they are frequently used
as the text links that lead to sites from a search engine's Results Page. The
best title tags contain strategic keywords that will help a site be indexed
properly and appeal to human search engine users.
Three-Way Link
Exchange
A three-way link exchange is a Reciprocal Link Exchange
established between three domains. However, unlike a two-way link exchange, not
all three sites link to each other. Page A links to Page B and Page B links to
Page C and Page C links to Page A. Page B does not post a reciprocal link to
Page A and Page C does not post a reciprocal link to Page B. Three-way link
exchanges are used by owners of multiple websites to increase the Link
Popularity and Page Rank of new or smaller sites.
Unique Visitor
Unique visitor is a web traffic measuring term which means
the registering of at least one hit on one page of a web site from a unique IP
address during a specified report period (typically anywhere from twenty-four
hours to a month). A subsequent hit(s) by the same IP address is not counted as
a unique visitor during that report period. Unique visitor count can be an
effective way of measuring the success of an SEO strategy.
Web Analytics
Web analytics is a branch of Analytics that uses web
traffic records to study the behavior of website visitors. Data such as Unique
Visitors, Hits, page views, and the connection between Landing Pages and
Conversion Rates are used to improve a website or marketing campaign.
Website Marketing
Also known as Internet marketing, website marketing is
using the Internet to advertise, communicate and sell goods and services. On an
advanced level, website marketing is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
which is the use of targeted keywords, crawler-friendly site architecture,
Search Engine Submissions and a well-developed link network to improve a site's
Position, Page Rank and Click-Through Rate.
Website Optimization
Also known as search engine optimization, website
optimization is the modification of a website for the purpose of improving its
natural Rank on Search Engine Results Pages. This is done through a combination
of optimization strategies such as directory and search engine Submission,
Keyword Marketing and improved Link quality.
Website Promotion
Website promotion refers to the marketing aspects of
Search Engine Optimization, such as Keyword Submission, Paid Inclusion, and
other techniques to increase a site's exposure.
Website Promotion
Services
Also known as search engine marketing, website promotion
services is an inclusive term for all techniques used to market a website via
search engines, including Pay-Per-Click advertising and Natural Search Engine
Optimization.
Website Submission
Also known as search engine registration or search engine
submission, website submission is the submission of a URL to a Directory or
Search Engine for inclusion in its Index. Registration is usually free but can
also require payment. Website submission is a basic but important part of
Search Engine Optimization.
White Hat SEO
Also known as natural search engine optimization or
organic search engine optimization, white hat SEO is the legitimate use of
keyword-focused copy and tags, Crawler-friendly site architecture, Search
Engine Submissions and a quality Backlinks network to improve a site's
Position, Page Rank and Click-Through Rate. White hat SEO does not involve the
use of Cloaking, Spam or any other Black Hat SEO techniques.
White hat SEO
techniques
. Use the quality and innovative content
. Good keywords selection
. No place for keyword stuffing
. Don't use hidden text.
. Create the quality back links
. Create the back link only genuine and naturally way
XML
XML is an acronym for Extensible Markup Language, a simple
and flexible text-based programming language used in conjunction with HTML. XML
is useful for data exchange and the creation of customized tags.
XML Feed
An XML feed is a form of Paid Inclusion or Search Engine
Submission in which an XML document is used to provide a search engine with
information about multiple web pages. An XML feed is particularly useful for
multimedia sites or database sites that draw a variety of relevant search
queries.
60 Essential checks
before launching a website
1. Did I conductive an extensive keyword research? Did I
find all the popular terms that are relevant to my industry/niche/website?
2. Did I choose the targeted keywords wisely? Have I made
sure that I can compete for the selected terms?
3. Did I write unique, high quality texts that will be
considered useful both by the Users and by the Search Engines? Have I performed
a spelling check to all of my texts?
4. Do I have unique titles and descriptions in all the
pages of the website?
5. Did I add all the important keywords in the page
Titles, the Meta-Descriptions and the HTML Headings (H1-H6)? Have I optimized
my texts for those keywords?
6. Are the Titles and Meta-Descriptions compelling for the
users? Will they click on my page if it appears on Search Engine Results?
7. Did I use keyword combinations that are likely to be
searched by users? Have I optimized my pages for those keyword combinations?
Did I incorporate in the text synonyms that are likely to be used in the
queries?
8. Do I have a descriptive alt text in all the images of
my website?
9. Have I ensured that the content is not over-optimized,
that there is no hidden text in the pages and that no Keyword Stuffing
techniques are used?
10. Did I keep my pages targeted by focusing on a small
number of keywords per page?
11. Have I kept the content of my pages relevant to my
website’s theme? Am I sure that I have not optimized my pages for irrelevant
terms?
12. Are the most important keywords of my page in the
beginning of the document?
13. Did I make sure that my pages will not compete each
other on SERPs and that I do not have lots of different pages optimized for
exactly the same keywords?
14. Is my website well coded? Is it cross-browser? Have I
made sure that my pages contain no broken HTML that is likely to affect the
analysis of the site?
15. Have I developed my website by using Search Engine
friendly technologies? Is someone able to access my website without requiring
him to use Flash, Silverlight, JavaScript/AJAX, Java applets, frames etc?
16. Is my menu visible from all the pages and is it
developed in HTML so that the search engines can find the rest of the pages?
17. Is my site easy to be crawled? Do I provide text links
for all the pages of my website?
18. Do I use properly the meta-robots tags?
19. Did I take steps to eliminate duplicate content by
focusing on the Link Architecture, by doing 301 redirects when required and by
using proper canonical tags?
20. Did I make sure that I don’t use unnecessary or
incorrect HTTP redirections?
21. Do I redirect the non-www version of my website to the
www version or vise versa?
22. What is the loading time of my website? Have I done
everything I can to reduce it?
23. Am I certain that I do not do Cloaking and that I have
no Doorway pages?
24. Did I incorporate the important keywords in my URLs?
25. Have I ensured that my URLs are not too lengthy or too
spammy?
26. Am I sure that no Session IDs (or other unnecessary
variables) appear in my URLs?
27. Are my URLs static and SEO friendly (they do not
include the “?” char)?
28. Do I use dashes instead of underscores in my URLs?
29. Have I ensured that I do not have too many outgoing
links per page?
30. Do the anchor texts of my internal links contain
important keywords? Are their text short but descriptive? Are these keywords
the same with the ones that I selected during keyword optimization?
31. Do I have an optimized Link Structure? Do I use a
tree-like architecture where the top level pages are the most important pages
of my website?
32. Have I linked the most important pages directly from
homepage or from the top categories?
33. Have I ensured that most of my PageRank/Link Juice
passes to my internal pages and that there are not too many links pointing to
external sites or dangling pages?
34. Have I eliminated all the links that point to
different versions of the same page, causing duplicate content problems?
35. Have I eliminated all the broken links?
36. Do I use meaningful internal anchors when necessary?
37. Am I 100% sure that I do not have any hidden, spammy
or paid links in my site?
38. Do I usually use text links instead of image links,
when I point to an internal page?
39. Have I nofollowed the links that I do not trust? Have
I decided on whether I will do PageRank sculpting?
40. Have I checked that my domain has no previous bans
from search engines?
41. Does the domain name contain any useful/relevant
keywords?
42. Have I selected the TLD of the domain wisely? Am I
certain of why I want to use a generic or a country specific TLD?
43. Do I understand what are the benefits and the
tradeoffs of using subdomains?
44. Do I know in which country my website is hosted? Am I
certain that the website should be hosted in that country? (Given that the
server location is a signal)
45. Is my hosting company reliable? Do they update/patch
their servers regularly? Do they offer the necessary modules that will help me
build an SEO Friendly Website? What is the uptime percentage? What are the
loading times? How many sites are hosted under the same IP?
46. Did I create XML and/or HTML sitemaps? Have I
submitted them to the search engines?
47. Have I created a robots.txt file? Do I know exactly
which pages I have to block? Am I certain that I want to block those pages?
48. Have I created an account on Google, Bing and Yahoo
Webmaster Tools? (Yes you should still use Yahoo tools until they are fully
integrated with Bing).
49. Have I created a Google Analytics account (or use a
similar Web Analytics service)? Have I added the tracking code in all the pages
of my website? Am I sure? Am I 100% sure?
50. Have I set up an RSS feed (mainly for blogs and news
websites)? Do I use the RSS autodiscovery technique? Have I added the RSS URL
on the HTML Header of my pages?
51. Do I understand what are the benefits and the
tradeoffs of using Geo location? Have I decided on whether I should use it on
my website?
52. Have I evaluated the design on my website? Have I set
up the call to actions?
53. Have I setup the scripts to monitor user’s activity?
54. Have I decided on whether I will do A/B testing?
55. Have I developed a solid Link Building
strategy? Have I gathered all the relevant high traffic directories of my
industry and the search engine’s local listings where I can submit my business?
Do I know which websites link to my competitors? Do I have a plan on how to
acquire high quality links?
56. Have I decided on whether I should use Social Media to
promote my brand? Have I developed a solid Social Media strategy? Did I add the
social media buttons in my website? Have I created the profiles?
57. Have I tested my website by using the Web SEO
Analytics Toolbox? How can I improve the site based on the SEO reports?
58. Am I positive that I use no blackhat techniques and
that I do not violate Google ‘s Guidelines?
59. Have I created the Email accounts, the FTP accounts
etc? Have I set up everything?
60. Have I tested thoroughly my website? Am I ready to go
live?
What is the
difference between Black Hat SEO and White SEO?
White hat techniques give long term good effect but the
black hat techniques give short term effect and it can effect badly on our site
and Google punish the site for using black hat techniques. So always use white
hat techniques.
Black Hat Techniques
- Hidden text – Create modern CSS based websites with JQuery effects. They often hide large portions of text in layers to display them on click or mouse over for usability reasons. Example: CSS pagination.
- IP delivery – Offer the proper localized content to those coming from a country specific IP address. Offer the user a choice though. Shopping.com does a great job here.
- 301 redirects – Redirect outdated pages to the newer versions or your homepage. When moving to a new domain use them of course as well.
- Throw Away Domains – Create exact match micro sites for short term popular keywords and abandon them when the trend subsides. Something like tigerwoodssexrehab.com
- Cloaking – Hide the heavy Flash animations from Google, show the text-only version optimized for accessibility and findability.
- Paid links – Donate for charity, software developers etc. Many of them display links to those who donate.
- Keyword stuffing – Tags and folksonomy. Keyword stuff but adding several tags or let your users do the dirty work via UGC tagging (folksonomy) every major social site does that.
- Automatically generated keyword pages – Some shopping search engines create pages from each Google search query and assign the appropriate products to each query. You can do that as well if you have enough content.
- Mispsellings – Define, correct the misspelled term and/or redirect to the correct version.
- Scraping – Create mirrors for popular sites. Offer them to the respective webmasters. Most will be glad to pay less.
- Ad only pages – Create all page ads (interstitials) and show them before users see content like many old media do.
- Blog spam – Don’t spam yourself! Get spammed! Install a WordPress blog without Akismet spam protection. Then create a few posts about Mesothelioma for example, a very profitable keyword. Then let spammers comment spam it or even add posts (via TDO Mini Forms). Last but not least parse the comments for your keyword and outgoing links. If they contain the keyword publish them and remove the outgoing links of course. Bot user generated content so to say.
- Duplicate content on multiple domains – Offer your content under a creative Commons License with attribution.
- Domain grabbing – Buy old authority domains that failed and revive them instead of putting them on sale.
- Fake news – Create real news on official looking sites for real events. You can even do it in print. Works great for all kinds of activism related topics.
- Link farm – Create a legit blog network of flagship blogs. A full time pro blogger can manage 3 to 5 high quality blogs by her or himself.
- New exploits – Find them and report them, blog about them. You break story and thus you get all the attention and links. Dave Naylor is excellent at it.
- Brand jacking – Write a bad review for a brand that has disappointed you or destroys the planet or set up a brand x sucks page and let consumers voice their concerns.
- Rogue bots – Spider websites and make their webmasters aware of broken links and other issues. Some people may be thankful enough to link to you.
- Hidden affiliate links – In fact hiding affiliate links is good for usability and can be even more ethical than showing them. example.com/ref?id=87233683 is far worse than than just example.com. Also unsuspecting Web users will copy your ad to forums etc. which might break their TOS. The only thing you have to do is disclose the affiliate as such. I prefer to use [ad] (on Twitter for example) or [partner-link] elsewhere. This way you can strip the annoying “ref” ids and achieve full disclosure at the same time.
- Doorway pages – Effectively doorway pages could also be called landing pages. The only difference is that doorway pages are worthless crap while landing pages are streamlined to suffice on their own. Common for both is that they are highly optimized for organic search traffic. So instead of making your doorway pages just a place to get skipped optimize them as landing pages and make the users convert right there.
- Multiple subdomains – Multiple subdomains for one domain can serve an ethical purpose. Just think blogspot.co or wordpress.com – they create multiple subdomains by UGC. This way they can rank several times for a query. You can offer subdomains to your users as well.
- Twitter automation – There is nothing wrong with Twitter automation as long as you don’t overdo it. Scheduling and repeating tweets, even automatically tweeting RSS feeds from your or other blogs is perfectly OK as long as the Twitter account has a real person attending it who tweets “manually” as well. Bot accounts can be ethical as well in case they are useful no only for yourself. A bot collecting news about Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake would be perfectly legit if you ask me.
- Deceptive headlines – Tabloids use them all the time, black hat SEO also do. There are ethical use cases for deceptive headlines though. Satire is one of course and humor simply as well. For instance I could end this list with 24 items and declare this post to a list of 30 items anyways. That would be a good laugh. I’ve done that in the past but in a more
- Google Bowling – The bad thing about Google bowling is that you hurt sites you don’t like. You could reverse that: Reverse Google bowling would mean that you push sites of competitors you like to make those you dislike disappear below. In a way we do that all the time linking out to the competition, the good guys of SEO who then outrank the ugly sites we like a lot less.
- Invisible links – You’d never used invisible links on your sites did you? You liar! You have. Most free web counters and statistic tools use them. Statcounter is a good example. So when you embed them on your site you use invisible links.
- Different content for search engines than users – Do you use WordPress? Then you have the nofollow attribute added to your comment links. this way the search engine gets different content than the user. He sees and clicks a link. A search bot sees a no trespass sign instead. In white hat SEO it’s often called PageRank sculpting. Most social media add ons do that by default.
- Hacking sites – While crackers hack sites security experts warn site owners that they vulnerabilities. Both discover the same issues. Recently I got an email by someone who warned me to update my WordPress installation. That was a grand idea I thought.
- Slander linkbait – Pulling a Calacanis like “SEO is bullshit” is quite common these days. Why don’t do it the other way around? The anti SEO thing doesn’t work that good anymore unless you are as famous as Robert Scoble. In contrast a post dealing with “100 Reasons to Love SEO Experts” might strike a chord by now.
- Map spam – Instead of faking multiple addresses all over the place just to appear on Google Maps and Local why don’t you simply create an affiliate network of real life small business owners with shops and offices who, for a small amount of money, are your representatives there? All they need to do is to collect your mail from Google and potential clients.