We’ll start off with defining what Search Engine Optimization is. According to Wikipedia, “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engine via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results”.

A few years ago if you had a good title tag and well-optimised meta-tags, you would rank reasonably well in search engines and many webmasters think this is still the case. However, it is important to realise that most meta-tags now carry little weight in search engine algorithms. The keyword meta-tag, for instance, has been abused so much that it is completely ignored by Google and does not carry much value with other search engines.

Who are Black Hat and White Hat Search Engine Optimizers? Those who practice what is deemed "ethical" SEO are referred to as White Hat SEOs (like the good guys in the movies), and those who some refer to as "spammers" are the Black Hats (like the bad guys in the movies). Those who are not quite as pure as the snow but aren’t as aggressive as search engine spammers are sometimes called Gray Hats.

 

Choosing the Right Keywords to Target

A vital first step is to determine which keywords you wish to rank well for. It’s all but impossible to get prominent listings for single words, so think of two, three or even four word combinations.

More specific terms will have far less searchers each month, but you will find it easier to be positioned well for them.

Think of suitable synonyms. Think of terms more likely to be used by surfers who will make you money. Ask your friends what search terms they would use to find a website like yours.

There are many free tools which can help you decide which keywords are hot such as those provided by Google and Wordtracker.

On-Page and Off-Page SEO

Search engines send spiders - also known as crawlers, robots and bots - to evaluate your documents. The bots employ two means to determine how to rank web pages: on-page and off-page factors. The former are the features on your documents/webpages and the latter are external factors.

This week’s tutorial will focus on On-Page SEO and in next week’s lesson we will learn which Off-Page strategies are currently most effective.

On-Page SEO

There are a multitude of factors within your website and documents which search engines will consider when determining whether to list your website and, if so, where in their rankings.

These include:

The domain name

A SEO-friendly domain name will have the keywords you wish to get listed for in it. This is not always easy to accomplish in this day and age when most short domain names with popular keywords in them have been registered.

Don’t take things too far, however. Some webmasters think they are being smart by registering domain names such as buy-cheap-music-books-denver.com. Although certainly search engine friendly, these are not memorable and look spammy. You are better off using a shorter domain name such as musicbooksdenver.com.

The document name

The title of your documents should include keywords. Use keyword1-keyword2.html for webpages. So www.primeq.com/affiliate-marketing-articles.html is better than www.primeq.com/article1.html . Remove Querystrings and question marks.

Title Tag

This determines the text that appears at the top left of the browser and, with a few exceptions, is used by most search engines to determine the title used in their listings. Don’t use something like “Welcome to Dave’s Store”. Why? Because this says nothing about what you have to offer. Unless “Dave’s Store” is a well-known brand, you should not make the common mistake of using it in the first few words of the TITLE tag which are given considerable weight by search engine spiders.

It is better to use a title like “Affiliate Marketing Newsletter – Free Tutorials on Online Advertising from PrimeQ.com”. Notice how it targets several relevant keywords such as “affiliate marketing”, “free”, “tutorials”, “advertising”.

Don’t just write your Title tag for search bots but human consumption too – a good title (and domain name) can attract up to three times more clicks than a less catchy one.

Description Tag

The description meta-tag is another good way to point search engines to the theme and content of your website. While using clear sentences, try to include as many relevant keywords as possible.

For example, the description tag for PrimeQ’s website should be as follows:

<Meta Name=“Description” Content=“International online marketing network for merchants and affiliates. Advertisers enjoy quality leads from around the world and publishers make money from hosting text and banner adverts. CPA, CPM and CPC advertising via websites and email lists.”>

(Incidentally, we are aware PrimeQ’s website has not been SEOd!)

H Tags

Try to get a H1 tag with relevant text towards the top of your page. It is also good to have H2 and H3 tags further down the page if you can integrate them without spoiling your pages.

Internal Linking

When linking between files on your website you should use the words you want to list well for in the anchor text. Instead of “click here”, use something like:

<a href="webpage2.html" title=”relevant descriptive text”>Anchor text</a>

Use descriptive text which is at least several words long in the link title too.

Alt Tag

When you have images on your webpages, make sure they have explanatory ALT tags with relevant keywords. Although not given as much weight as other on-page SEO techniques, ALT tags can be a good way of feeding those hungry search engine spiders with suitable keywords.

As with all aspects of SEO, don’t go overboard. Although search engines are quite liberal with ALT tags, overstuffing them with keywords could get you delisted.

Content

Oh so important... fresh, focused, relevant content will make you the darling of the search engine bots. Make sure your text is updated from time to time with news, offers, articles etc.

If you have the time to maintain a blog, it can be a simple way of adding fresh content to your website. PrimeQ will shortly be launching a blog for this reason among others. If you are limited for time, syndicated RSS feeds can help keep your site fresh and lustful to search engine bots.

Try to use your target keywords in the first or second sentence, as the text towards the top is given more relevance by Googlebot and others.

Your content should try to have the optimal keyword density. This varies from search engine to search engine and from time to time. According to respected SEO and Blog expert, Wayne Hurlbert, you should not have a keyword density of more than 2% for Google and 5% for Yahoo and Live Search (MSN). There is a tool which determines any webpage’s keyword density here.

If you don’t want to get all geeky, simply ensure the phrases you wish to be listed for are sprinkled in your text every few sentences.

If possible, try to feature some of your target keywords in bold and italics. The search engines will think you consider the content of this text to be important.

Frames, Tables and Flash

These make it difficult for the search engines to crawl your websites and so avoid as much as possible. Use CSS instead.

Sitemap

Add a XML sitemap. Sitemaps are a way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling and, at their simplest form, are a list of all the URLs on your site. More information at sitemaps.org. There are many easy-to-use free sitemap generators such as this one. Once you’ve created a sitemap, submit to Google through this link and Yahoo here.

It is imperative that each and every page is uniquely optimised for search engines. Lazy web designers will, for instance, use the same meta-tags on each page. Making the effort to optimize each page will benefit you considerably.

Finally, finally... do not spoil your webpages for the sake of SEO. A blatantly SEOd page looks crass and will put people off. After all, if search engine spiders are more important to you than human beings, why should the latter spend time on your site?

Next week’s tutorial will concentrate on Off Page SEO and, among other things, spill the beans on how to get listed in Google within 24 hours and enjoy instant inbound links from a site which has a Google PR 7 for nothing.

If you would like to learn more about SEO and can get to London on July 24, PrimeQ are running a free crash course. More details here.

 

Rumor Mill Buzzing with Talk of Microsoft Buying Facebook

The Microsoft-Facebook acquisition rumor has surfaced again. Among those fanning the flames are former Internet analyst Henry Blodget who claims Microsoft are willing to pay a hefty price tag of $6 billion.

That works out at $127 per user - considerably over the per user figure for the MySpace, YouTube and Last.fm acquisitions at $32, $82.50 and $18.67 respectively.  News Corp. executives have said that MySpace - Facebook's closest competitor - is worth about $6 billion, although it has more users and higher revenue.

Blodget posts on his blog that, "No, of course we can't confirm it. But it makes sense, don't you think?"

However, others have commented that Facebook's very ambitious founder Mark Zuckerberg would prefer to go it alone. He has turned his nose up at Microsoft before. There is a famous anecdote of Zuckerberg failing to show up for an early morning conference call with Microsoft in early 2006 when the software giant was reportedly considering a $2 billion purchase of the social networking startup.

Microsoft’s arch rival Google seems to be sitting back to see if Facebook’s growth will continue or falter, as other social networking sites like Friendster have done. "If they come to us, we'd certainly be open to talking," Google founder Sergey Brin has commented. "But I think they're building a great company of their own."

Facebook now has 26 million users. The number of pages of content viewed in May 2007 increased to15.8 billion, up 143 percent versus May 2006. Visitors averaged 186 minutes at the site in May 2007, which was a 35 percent increase over the same month the previous year.

The social network is profitable and will post a positive EBITA. It will earn well over $100 million in revenue this year according to Jim Breyer, managing partner of venture capital firm Accel Partners, one of Facebook's biggest investors.

PrimeQ has a group at Facebook which anybody may join here.

 
Australian Government Sues Google for Misleading Adverts

The Australian Government's consumer watchdog group, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), is suing Google Inc., Google Australia and Google Ireland due to deceptive Adwords ads presented next to Google’s organic results.

The ACCC said that in 2005 sponsored links titled “Kloster Ford” and “Charlestown Toyota” appeared on Google, but the links allegedly directed users to the Trading Post website. Both dealerships compete with the Trading Post.

The ACCC is suing for "misleading and deceptive conduct" on two grounds: by allowing the ads to run, and by its failure to distinguish sponsored links from "organic" links, thereby breaching the country's Trade Practices Act.

Though Google believes the claims aren't merited, they may have a tough time defending themselves in Australia, which is home to especially tough trade practices laws.

The matter will come before the Federal Court in Sydney on August 21.

 

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"Choose a job you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life." Confucius Chinese thinker and social philosopher (551 BC – 479 BC)

 

 

 

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