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Learn about Meta Tags and their importance
What is an HTML Title and why should I use it?
Directories and their importance for search engine rankings explained
The Importance of Links Explained
Don't Wave Any Spam Flags If You Want Traffic From Google
Use Seo Techniques To Improve Your Websites Rankings
What is an HTML Title and why should I use it? Your title is the most important tag on your pages as far as search engines are concerned. What does the Title tag look like? <TITLE>Your Title Tag - learn to optimize your title tag</TITLE> Where is the Title tag placed on a page? Your title should appear right after the <head> tag at the top of your page. If you're using a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) tool, such as FrontPage or DreamWeaver, you may want to make sure your title is placed correctly. Placing keywords in the Title tag
To review: The HTML Title:
Include keyword phrases in your title tag:Think of a title tag as the name above a shop. Imagine you are walking down a busy street with shops on either side of you. However every shop window is boarded up and all that is visible is its name. You mean to purchase a new Hi-Fi system and need to locate a suitable store. You look at all the names but are getting confused as to which one is for you. All of a sudden you see a store with 'Hi-Fi and Electrical' in its name. You enter and purchase your spanking new Hi-Fi system, but it is a bit expensive. And little did you know but the store next door also sold Hi-Fi systems but for a lot cheaper. However its name did not indicate this. In fact its name sounded more like a jewellery shop than an electrical store. A search engine is rather like the shopper in the above example. It sees the title on each web page and determines whether this would be a good result to return based on its text. If you search for 'Hi-Fi' it is highly likely that some of the results returned will have 'Hi-Fi' in their title. To be found using the search engines you should optimize your website for a set of keyword phrases. These keyword phrases should be included in your title tag. Suppose I was a website selling Hi-Fi systems, then I would like my website to appear in search engine results when searching with the phrase 'Hi-Fi systems'. If I include 'Hi-Fi systems' in my title tag I will increase the chances that the search engines will find the page and my ranking will be higher. Of course you are not limited to adding only one keyword phrase to your title, I would recommend two perhaps three but be careful not to make it too long. Also remember make it easy to understand and descriptive for a human. Order these keyword phrases effectively:Placing a keyword phrase at the start of the title tag allows it to be seen better by the search engines. Look at the following examples:
Both of these two examples are acceptable to human eyes but in the eyes of the search engines the second is see as more relevant if 'Hi-Fi Systems' is searched for because it appears at the start of the title. Generally it is best to place company name or the name of website to the end of your title tag. Make your title enticing to the eye:Although this point does not make a lot of difference to the search engines it can help to get people to click on your link in search results.
I imagine that most people would say that (3) is the most pleasing. (1) and (2) are harder to read because of improper captilization. In (1) you see that using all capitals detracts the importance of any words you actually want to draw attention to and also some search engines may penalise this practice. (2) is simply a nightmare to read. Try to keep title tags as unique as possible:As each page on your site should be unique so should your title tags. Not only do unique title tags make the site more descriptive and navigable to a person they help search engines answer queries more accurately and allow more penetration of your site's pages in their databases. Common title tags mistakes:
Summary:Ignoring title tags is definitely a mistake if you aim to achieve high rankings. Although it takes a lot more than the title tag to propel you to the top of the search engines it can be very effective in making a search engine more secure that your site's content is more relevant than a competitor's. Directories and their importance for search engine rankingsAbout directories: A directory is simply a web site that contains a categorized listing of links from around the web. They aid surfers to locate the 'best' and most informative links for a particular category. For example a category may be called 'Home and Garden' and in this category there is list of links about home improvement and gardening. Directories consist of a collection of categories into which links are seperated. Categories can have sub-categories to make the division of links more specific. If you read my link popularity article you will learn why directories are important tools in building link popularity and as a result help improve search engine ranking. They are an excellent source of inbound, one-way links, which are the most powerful types of links to help build link popularity. There are a multitude of varied directories on the web at present. They range from general directories that include categories for almost everything, to specific directories that contain categories to match specific area/s of interest e.g. web sites about fishing. It is helpful to get your web site listed in as many directories as possible as this will help you beat the competition in rankings. Getting your link listed varies between directories as each has their own different process. Some directories require a fee but most do not. A lot of directories offer a mixture between free and paid listing. When you pay to get your link listed in a directory it is normally added within a week and it is guaranteed to be added. On the flipside a directory offer a free listing can take anywhere from a week to several months to add your link, and also there is no guarantee that the link will be added. The Importance of Links ExplainedSEO - create one way text link ads to your website for top search engine listings. SEO - create one way text link ads to your website for top search engine listings. Search engines view links as votes for your site but also understand that not all links have equal value. A link from a top ranked web site for example would carry more weight than a link from a site ranked 1 million. The process of determining the quality of links is a very complex one. Here are a few things a search engine may look at: The relevancy of the site linking to your site Logic says that if you have an excellent site about bicycles, other sites within the bicycle industry would link to you. This is the exact reason you should never be afraid to ask for a link from a competitor. If the competitor is any good they will know the importance of links, if not, you can explain it to them. Always remember that you want to get as many links from within your industry as possible in order to establish a solid foundation. You can furthermore not really be penalised for incoming links. Links from other industries will simply carry less weight or in the worst case have a weight of zero. The PR value of the page linking to your site. The PR score of a page linking to you IS important, the higher the better. This however does not carry as much weight by itself as it once did. Simply download the Google Toolbar to view the PR of any site. This provides a good yardstick for the sites value. You must however also keep the items below in mind and not only base the power of a link on its PR value. The frequency at which links are added/edited/deleted on the page linking to your site. A search engine may monitor how a site uses its linking power. What this means is they will keep track of how many new links are added, the frequency at which they are added and how often they are deleted or replaced. They do this in order to get a better idea of a sites link stability. This helps determine if a site is actually a "good site" or one that is merely selling links. Sites that sell links will logically be more active in the add/edit/delete categories. Search engines give more value to old links that have "aged" than to new fresh ones. Links that you have had to your site for 2 years would logically be more valuable than ones you have had for 1 week. This is why new links are put in a "sandbox" and not fully counted for 6-9 months. Keep this in mind if you ever wish to purchase links, you will need to commit to at least 1 year. The IP address of the site linking to your site Location of a link is important. A site that is linked to "naturally" will have links from all over the net. They will not only have links from sites on the same "address" as them. That does not seem natural. How can a site only have links from one place and expect to be truly popular? To win an "election" you need links or votes from all over. Another reason the IP address is important is due to the fact that webmasters would build huge networks of interlinked sites. Use the C-Class checker tool to find out the exact location of anyone you wish to trade links with. This of course does not mean turn down links from similar locations, just try keep it all natural. The ownership details of the site linking to your site Again in order to combat link networks search engines may look at the "whois" info of a site. This way they can determine if several different people are linking to a site, or if it's all the same person. Should you wish to view the "whois" info for any site simply visit www.whois.sc Should a top ranking site develop "organically" logic tells us it would have many links from several different sites each with different owners. 3. Where to Purchase Links Remember when purchasing to links to do so from relevant sites - sites in a similar industry to your own. www.linkadage.com 4. Where to Purchase Traffic Purchasing traffic has several advantages if done correctly. Always remember to track the campaign performance in order to monitor the Return On Investment. Below are three excellent sites you should visit: adwords.google.com Google Adwords Off Page OptimizationBefore we dig into on page optimizations, we need to consider how the major search engines index pages. Major search engines use spiders (also called robots) to crawl (trace) the web and find pages by following links just like a human browser might. However, there are technical limitations to what spiders can do. Your site's architecture can make a huge difference in a spider's ability to read and index your pages. An in-depth dissertation on site architecture is beyond the scope of this tutorial. However, if your site employs:
You need to investigate the potential problems spiders are going to have indexing your pages before the following SEO tutorial will be effective. A quick check on the Lynx Viewer will let you see your web site much like the search engine spiders do. Can they see your content and (navigation) links? SEO lends itself to tunnel vision among the newcomers to the field. The gratification of seeing your pages rising in search engine results for your keyhrases can be addictive. Always keep your visitor in mind when performing your search engine optimizations. Achieving high rankings (and traffic) will only result in higher bandwidth bills if your site does not convert traffic to sales (whether direct or indirect). Never compromise the useability and copy of your site in favor of SEO - avoid SEO tunnel vision. Your conversions/ROI will likely suffer. Title TagGoogle and most search engines place a lot of emphasis on the title tag for each page. Title tags should include the one or two keyphrases that you will be targeting with that page. The closer the keyphrase is to the beginning of the title, the more weight it carries. Thus keyphrase one, keyphrase two - business name will be more effective than business name - keyphrase one, keyphrase two. It is a good idea to limit the number of keyphrases you target with any given page to two (three at the very most) per page. Trying to target more keyphrases results in diluted results for all phrases. It is better to add more pages to your site and target additional terms with additional pages and copy. Search engines will index all of your pages, so do not limit yourself to trying to optimize just your home (index) page. (Meta) Description TagMost search engines ignore the description tag as far as keyword relevancy is concerned. It doesn't hurt to work your keywords into the description tag, but if you include the description tag, write it to entice visitors to come to your page. Most search engines use the Description tag to some extent when displaying search results. This is your chance to differentiate your site from all the other results in a search. (Meta) Keyword TagMost search engines completely ignore the keyword tag. Years ago, this tag was used by the search engines for determining relevancy, but it was abused. If you include a keyword tag, keep it short. There is not much point in listing anything other than the keyphrases you have included in the title tag. CopyThe single most important part of your on-page SEO effort is to ensure that your keyphrases are used within the copy (text) of your page. The keyphrases should be repeated as much as possible without compromising the text. Forcing the phrases into the text in choppy, stilted sentences may impress the search engines, but it will not impress your human visitors. It is counterproductive. Keyphrases may (and should) be used in:
Be sure not to abuse image alt tags or heading tags with keyword stuffing. Search engines may penalize your site for that. This is all you need to do for basic on page optimizations to produce dramatic results for non-optimized sites. Acheiving the right balance of keyphrase repetition and copy that also sells is an art. If you are interested in learning more about SEO copywriting, Karon Thackston's The Step-By-Step Copywriting Course is very good. On Page OptimizationsBefore we dig into on page optimizations, we need to consider how the major search engines index pages. Major search engines use spiders (also called robots) to crawl (trace) the web and find pages by following links just like a human browser might. However, there are technical limitations to what spiders can do. Your site's architecture can make a huge difference in a spider's ability to read and index your pages. An in-depth dissertation on site architecture is beyond the scope of this tutorial. However, if your site employs:
You need to investigate the potential problems spiders are going to have indexing your pages before the following SEO tutorial will be effective. A quick check on the Lynx Viewer will let you see your web site much like the search engine spiders do. Can they see your content and (navigation) links? SEO lends itself to tunnel vision among the newcomers to the field. The gratification of seeing your pages rising in search engine results for your keyhrases can be addictive. Always keep your visitor in mind when performing your search engine optimizations. Achieving high rankings (and traffic) will only result in higher bandwidth bills if your site does not convert traffic to sales (whether direct or indirect). Never compromise the useability and copy of your site in favor of SEO - avoid SEO tunnel vision. Your conversions/ROI will likely suffer. Title TagGoogle and most search engines place a lot of emphasis on the title tag for each page. Title tags should include the one or two keyphrases that you will be targeting with that page. The closer the keyphrase is to the beginning of the title, the more weight it carries. Thus keyphrase one, keyphrase two - business name will be more effective than business name - keyphrase one, keyphrase two. It is a good idea to limit the number of keyphrases you target with any given page to two (three at the very most) per page. Trying to target more keyphrases results in diluted results for all phrases. It is better to add more pages to your site and target additional terms with additional pages and copy. Search engines will index all of your pages, so do not limit yourself to trying to optimize just your home (index) page. (Meta) Description TagMost search engines ignore the description tag as far as keyword relevancy is concerned. It doesn't hurt to work your keywords into the description tag, but if you include the description tag, write it to entice visitors to come to your page. Most search engines use the Description tag to some extent when displaying search results. This is your chance to differentiate your site from all the other results in a search. (Meta) Keyword TagMost search engines completely ignore the keyword tag. Years ago, this tag was used by the search engines for determining relevancy, but it was abused. If you include a keyword tag, keep it short. There is not much point in listing anything other than the keyphrases you have included in the title tag. CopyThe single most important part of your on-page SEO effort is to ensure that your keyphrases are used within the copy (text) of your page. The keyphrases should be repeated as much as possible without compromising the text. Forcing the phrases into the text in choppy, stilted sentences may impress the search engines, but it will not impress your human visitors. It is counterproductive. Keyphrases may (and should) be used in:
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