seo specialist

Every web publisher wants to attain top positions in the search engines to increase traffic. To attain a high ranking, your site has to be search engine friendly.

Search engine spiders index your web site. They only read the HTML code in your web pages. They don't read graphics, JavaScript code and other scripts and features.

Just a few simple changes to your web pages can give your site a huge search engine boost. Even better, it can bring in ongoing FREE targeted traffic.

It's important to create a search engine friendly site while at the same time keeping your site friendly to your visitors. You want to structure your pages for maximum search engine exposure without compromising the content or look of your site. After all, what good is traffic if your visitors won't read your pages?

Keyword-rich, theme-based web sites will give you both targeted traffic and good search engine ranking.

Here are 10 easy steps you can take to make sure your pages are search engine friendly and user-friendly.

1. Selecting a domain name. There is a lot of disagreement about whether search bots give importance to the keywords in your domain name. I suggest that you select a domain name that indicates what your site is about. Even if it doesn't matter to search engines, it's important that it tells your visitors what the topic of your site is.

2. Focus on one theme. Search engines love specialized content. If you have several topics, then you should create several web sites. The more you focus on one topic, the more your page will be optimized for search engines and the more relevant it will be to your visitors.

3. Create multiple content pages. Make a separate page for each important keyword and key phrase. If, for example, you want your site to come up for the key phrases web consulting, web design, and search engine optimization, make three separate pages. Create a web page for each major keyword. Don't create automated pages just to get search engine exposure. To keep visitors at your site, you have to give them good content. Keyword-rich articles are a good way to optimize your pages for search engines while providing useful content to your visitors.

4. Optimize each content page for ONE of your key phrases. Put your targeted key phrases in your content. Include them in your page title, description tag, ALT image tags, comment tags, and in internal and external links. When providing a title and description in the META tags, your listing may be displayed in the search engine listing as you provide it. Make your titles and descriptions informative and compelling to attract potential buyers to your site. Provide a benefit or solve a problem.

5. Put your keywords in your content. Search engines are looking at how often your keyword appears on a page. That's how they determine relevancy. Short pages provide a larger percentage of keywords and are better for search engine optimization. The keyword density of a Web page is important for search engine optimization. How often you should mention your keyword throughout the text is different for each search engine, but it varies between 3% and 5% of your text. In other words, use your keyword 3-5 times for every 100 words on your page.

6. Naming files and directories. Put important keywords in all file names and directories/folder names describing the content. For example, to promote e-book covers, I name my files ebook-covers.html, cd-covers.html, box-cover.html, etc.

7. Naming graphics. The search bots don't see your graphics but they can see the description of your graphics and navigation buttons in ALT tags (alternative text describing your images for visitors who browse your site with the images turned off). If your navigation links are images, I recommend that you provide text links in addition to the image links for search engine optimization.

8. Navigation. Have your main navigation links on your home page so search engines can follow your links and index your pages. This is just as important for your visitors as for the search engines.

9. Link your pages together. You can easily link to all your pages by creating a sitemap.

10. Directory structure. Put your important files in the first level. Sub-directories that lie deep are more difficult for search engines to scan. Creating a site map for large sites and providing a link to your site map on your home page is a good way to get all your important pages indexed.

Make it easy for search engines to index your site. Apply these simple tips, and you will be well on your way to having a search engine and user-friendly web site!

From: promotionworld.com by Jagmohan Singh Gusain

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The key to running a successful large-scale Web site with a focus on organic search traffic is scale. It is obvious that a site with millions of products cannot be manually managed on a product-by-product basis. You would need a staff of over 1,000 employees and a cost center far beyond anything feasible.

A fair-sized team for an in-house SEO department should, at minimum, consist of one director, one manager, one analytics expert and a strong tie into your public relations team. A team of this size should be able to efficiently drive forward even a site with massive scale.

The team should also be capable of working with other departments to educate co-workers on the value of SEO. When SEO is a large unknown, many people will resist it at first. Getting buy-in from the various stakeholders can make or break your search plans. Getting your co-workers to understand why things work the way they do will get them to fight for you. They will be your eyes and ears, especially when you have a really small team.

Write the Way Your Customers Search

To accomplish an SEO task of epic proportions, you must first start small, and slice your site into two main areas: page types and categories. An example of different page types would be the difference between a category page and a product page. These pages will usually be constructed differently and should allow you to utilize different SEO practices, including writing logical page titles that target your particular search audience based on their searching behaviors.

I recommend looking at tools like Google Trends, so that you can easily identify simple category naming mistakes. For example, the choice between naming a category "MP3 Players" vs. "Digital Media Players" can mean a difference from 7 clicks a day to thousands of clicks per day.

From a keyword perspective, it is imperative that short, distinct product names are used. Search engines will index the page with the exact keywords you have on the page, of course. Many retailers make the mistake of trying to optimize the page for the full manufacturer's product name. For example, a digital camera reseller might use "Nikon D40 Digital Camera with G-II 18-55mm Lens." Not many searchers will ever type this query into Google.

The best product name for this would be Nikon D40. This process can be automated fairly easily, since the manufacturers name and model are already in your database. The extra descriptors should be put in the product description content area. This simple fix can mean as much as a 30-percent lift in organic traffic.

Look Behind the Scenes

Another extremely common pitfall is sloppy code generation. Take a look at any large site and you will see machine-generated white spaces, poorly closed tables, div tags and my favorite, meaningless comment tags. This usually is creating extra code that has no real value and will make the page load time longer, which is not a good user experience. In general, if you pay attention to the minute details, they will add up to big successes in the long run.

Data center setup is a show-stopper; it's amazing what your operations department is capable of unintentionally messing up. In some cases, I have seen operations block spiders because they were coming into the site too often. Another common operations nightmare is IP-based redirection to single nodes, when they route spider traffic to a slower subset of servers. When that happens, it will indicate a much higher latency to Google, and can possibly damage your rankings. If you think about it, why would Google want to rank a site that is going to provide an extremely slow user experience when a faster one is right around the corner?

Measure Your Results

Once you start getting things underway, it is critically important to track your progress. With extremely large sites, this can be a very difficult task, but it can also start with something as simple as a spreadsheet with a small sample of your keywords. If you are using an outside vendor for Web analytics, you will quickly find that their ability to handle your specific needs will be scarce. Therefore, a custom metrics strategy will become a high priority and you could be pouring an incredible amount of money into this project.

When it comes to analytics, be prepared to scale immediately. You will quickly find that when you combine traffic, ranking samples, and revenue and conversion data together, it becomes almost unmanageable. Thus, a large-scale database is necessary – so don't skimp out!

Go for the best, or you will be frustrated with speed, availability and data loss problems. Consider hiring a business intelligence expert to come in and build this system. The specific level of knowledge required to design and maintain this type of system is massive and should not be taken lightly.

Building an in-house SEO team can be a daunting task, especially for large organizations. With proper planning, the experience becomes more manageable, and success becomes more likely. The important thing to remember when planning such a big project is to start small, and pay attention to the smaller details within the larger project.

From: searchenginewatch.com by Aaron Shear

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My daughter is going into sixth grade, and she's pretty excited about taking more advanced math and science classes, which she gets from her dad. I need a calculator to figure out a 20-percent tip. The other day she asked me if they taught the scientific method when I was in school. Of course they did -- but I realized I had no idea recollection of exactly what that method was -- so I looked it up.

I was amazed, surprised, and a little inspired. It's so simple in description, but has unlimited potential. According to Discovery Education, "The scientific method is the 'tool' that scientists use to find the answers to questions. It is the process of thinking through the possible solutions to a problem and testing each possibility to find the best solution."

I'm working on establishing a conversion optimization program for our clients. We have a need for something structured and tangible that we can implement and show our successes in measured steps. In theory, the research and development of this plan sounded fairly straightforward when I tackled it; in practice, I'm struggling a bit.

Showing results from the beginning of the implementation of the program seems to be a key factor to obtaining buy-in. This 10-minute conversation with my 11-year-old cleared the fog from my brain and gave me a new way to approach my research.

Small business owners all the way up to Fortune 500 companies can benefit from applying the scientific method to their Web site conversions. If you can't afford to hire out, it's important to understand how you can do things yourself. Breaking it down and making the process achievable in small chunks is a great way to get things done.

Basic steps to the scientific method:

1. Identify the problem.
2. Formulate a hypothesis.
3. Test the hypothesis.
4. Collect and analyze the data.
5. Make conclusions.

To this I've added a sixth step: rinse and repeat.

1. Identify the Problem

Do you know where your sticking points are? Does your homepage or landing page have a huge bounce or abandonment rate? This is the problem you need to solve. You can't know about your Web site problems without analytics -- so implement some type of measurement on your Web site right away if you haven't already. Before you move to the testing, make sure you baseline the data you have, so you can compare before and after.

2. Formulate a Hypothesis

This is fancy scientist speak for "decide how the issue might be solved." If your homepage is bouncing visitors left and right, take an objective look at how things are laid out. Is the traffic you're receiving qualified? If not, your hypothesis should be, "change optimization and paid search targeting to be more focused on products and services we deliver."

3. Test the Hypothesis

Testing is so important. Making changes to a site can be tricky -- and measuring the cause and effect of everything you do is key. Always make changes and test within a controlled situation. This means change one thing at a time. Changing four things in one test makes it impossible to know exactly which one of those four changes did the trick.

Sometimes, something as simple as changing your paid search phrases from "broad" to "phrase" match is all it takes. Maybe some re-optimization of landing pages so they rank for a longer-tail, but more qualified keyword can improve poor traffic quality.

I'm really happy that Google's Website Optimizer is both free and pretty straightforward to use. With a little help from a good designer you trust, you can start testing different buttons, calls to action, and more.

4. Collect and Analyze the Data

Again, analytics is crucial to making your site convert. Look at your numbers before and after the test to see how you did. It's likely you won't dial it in perfectly with the first test. Look at what worked with your test, and what didn't.

5. Make Conclusions

Once you've analyzed the data, decide if you're happy with the outcome or if you need to test again. Maybe a red button would work better than blue. It's worth a try if you have the time and money to invest in the process. Your conclusion may be that your test didn't work, and you need to move back and formulate a new hypothesis.

Scientists develop and test many hypotheses before coming to a reasonable and desired outcome. Don't be afraid to try again if your outcome was less than desirable.

6. Rinse and Repeat

The scientific method can apply to any type of experiment, be it chemistry or Web site marketing. Increasing conversions is an ongoing process, until I reach a 100-percent conversion rate. That's a pretty lofty (and some would argue impossible) goal -- so setting a realistic incremental change is important.

That being said, theoretically you could test forever and never be "done." Set a goal for what you'd like to accomplish to help you know when you're "done." Then set the next goal.

From: searchenginewatch.com by Carrie Hill

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My backyard is a swamp. All right, it's more like a marsh. Either way, my backyard is part of a nature conservancy that preserves a piece of the wetlands that make up so much of the landscape in the area. It's a fabulous place to be if you don't mind the taste of deet in your mouth. The mosquitoes tend to swarm around warm tissue at sunrise and sunset. A great day consists of a good breeze to keep the bugs at bay.

In the morning, the ducks splash into the pond and the nesting geese waddle about the short grass, honking and head-bobbing to their goslings. It's common to see a solo great blue heron rivaling a fisherman or two for an early morning feast of small mouth bass. As the day fades, the real fireworks begin. That's when the fireflies light up the long grass with a graceful dance as they signal codes in a Morse-like fashion that only other fireflies can understand.

The beauty of the area is that you can see, taste, and smell the harmonic resonance of nature in its purest form. It's a well-orchestrated performance in motion 24/7. The seasons signal some inhabitants to arrive, others to depart, and still others to burrow or stock up on nuts. My little backyard swamp is an exceedingly complex ecosystem that supports a delicate cycle of nature in motion.

Why the foray into naturalism when I'm supposed to be talking about natural search?

Because at the end of the day, the two constructs are not entirely dissimilar. Natural search, after all, is part of the Web's nature. A natural search program will be as barren as a desert if goods or services would-be visitors seek can't be found. A successful natural search strategy needs to be more like a marshland -- an essential part of sustaining online entities with a constant flow of nutrients in the form of search-referred visitors.

If you study something long enough, you'll observe the nature of being and grow your understanding of its essence, be it a marsh or a search engine. Just as the wind ripples through the long grass and makes the cattails bow to its energy in the marsh, so too do algorithms waft through online documents assessing the strength of the root.

With rich media in plan, dynamic Web site constructs in motion, and competing forces all around, putting together a natural search strategy has many complex components. Just as a wetland must work in harmony with the environment to produce desired results, so too must an online organization provide resources for understanding natural search, lest the spiders get bogged down by the muck.

As the stream flows through the marsh, depositing rich nutrients in the damp soil, so too the clickstreams of visitors passing through search referrals to a Web site feed that Web site. The rich sites are further enriched by proximity to the thematic channel like the swamp grass and cattails that grow stronger and taller near the thick shore of the creek. But that doesn't mean that peace and serenity are always part of the picture.

Powerful thunderstorms and wind can test the structure of nearly any entity. Last fall, there were whitecaps on the marsh after 10 solid days of rain. Storms are disruptive forces essential to maintaining the marsh's cyclic balance. They're very similar to aggressive crawls through a Web site or traffic fits and bursts sent from social media venues. Eventually indexation updates settle, new visitors come and go, and a vast flux in the number of inbound links are accounted for by revealing new data in the calm after the storm.

Yet those who rage against the natural forces of the stormy algorithmic updates find their results diminished and their search referrals as tattered as a clump of Queen Anne's lace after a hail squall. The search engines perform much like Mother Nature, and we all know what happens to those who attempt to fool her. The virtual fools are eventually revealed over time, too.

A search engine strategy is nearly as complex as the wetland's delicate ecosystem. Before you can build a strategy, you must observe how your Web site functions in its online environment. Just like a nature conservancy must be set aside to sustain itself, so too must a successful search engine strategy be built upon natural resources within the organization.

Successful search engine strategies are built by weaving together many different resources, including programming time from IT staff, additional efforts from Web developers, ongoing analysis of Web metrics and harvested data, and online marketing initiatives and PR.

Just as my local nature conservancy board oversees the general health of the wetland, so too must an online organization take the long view on planning, building, and sustaining a natural search strategy. Having a natural disposition for search is all about creating an environment from which you can sustain your Web-land like a wetland.

From: clickZ.com by P.J. Fusco

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If you are not perplexed, you should be. As the web becomes ever more widespread, infiltrating our lives and shaping what we think is possible, we are increasingly unnerved about what we might have unleashed. Will it promote democratic collaboration and creativity? Or will the web be a malign influence, rendering us collectively stupid by our reliance on what Google and Wikipedia tell us being true, or, worse, promoting bigotry, thoughtlessness, criminality and terror?

Over the next two or three decades, people will start to play quite different roles, seeing themselves increasingly as participants and contributors, as well as workers and consumers.

Participation will, however, mean quite different things in different settings. More companies and brands, politicians and celebrities will try to incorporate their consumers as fans and followers, recruiting celebrants. They will participate, but more in the way a congregation does in a church service. Fundamentalists and terrorists are using the web in a different way, to connect widely distributed followers, disciples and adherents of a faith: the people involved in these networks are not just followers but also activists and initiators. Hacker communities, different again, bring together self-governing, democratic communities of digital craft workers.

But it would be naive to imagine that a new way of organising ourselves will necessarily be exclusively positive. There will be downsides, possibly very significant ones. Critics are already warning us to worry about a whole slew of possible disadvantages: the erosion of professional authority and knowledge; the loss of individuality in a morass of social networking; the eradication of spaces for reflection as a result of our being constantly connected; and the degradation of friendship when relationships are mediated by technology.

Strengths often breed matching weaknesses: the web's power comes from the way that it allows people to share, and that may also be its greatest flaw. There are no central gatekeepers to control access to the internet. It is a platform that virtually anyone can join, on which they can find other people, connect with them and start to share ideas.

A network originally designed to allow an elite of technically savvy US academics and researchers to share files has blossomed to embrace hundreds of millions of people, each with their own reason to want to join in myriad activities. And, unlike television, the internet has allowed people to adapt the technology as they use it, so generating yet more applications.

The internet's remarkable culture of openness will be the source of our greatest challenges and risks. For sharing can also spread diseases, infections and viruses. Ideas and identities once stolen can be spirited away and spread across thousands of computers.

Open networks make us vulnerable. In May 2007, the internet infrastructure of Estonia, one of the most connected societies in Europe, ground to a halt as its public and commercial organisations were hit by an attack from more than one million computers co-ordinated from Russia.

In their different ways, all the web's critics converge on a single worry: it makes the world more unreliable, threatening and out of control. Whatever the limitations of top-down, industrial-era institutions, at least the world they created was relatively orderly and people knew where they stood.

Editors, academics, doctors, scientists and professionals were the gatekeepers of knowledge; they could be trusted to tell us what was fact and what not. Instead of generating more knowledge, the web often seems to sow more doubt and uncertainty, spreading speculation and gossip. Now the means to spread terror are available to anyone with a camcorder, and deadly biological weapons could probably be made using ingredients bought on eBay with information gleaned from Wikipedia. You do not have to believe in conspiracy theories to worry. By 2050, tools for genetic engineering could be available to hapless amateurs releasing dangerous mutations from greenhouses equipped with gene sequencers.

Most of our worries about the world that is opening up to us come back to the fact we have little option but to share with people we do not know and cannot necessarily trust. Our growing connections to other people also leave us exposed to them. We are unavoidably implicated in and compromised by far-off events: in the summer of 2007 panicked British savers queued in their thousands to withdraw their money after a downturn in part of the distant US mortgage market. Keeping things stable when so many people can be connected to so much so easily takes ever more effort, whether in the form of financial market regulation or of the millions of interconnected decisions that we will need to make to tackle climate change.

Studies of forests show that, as they grow, they become more diverse, with plants and animals increasingly occupying specialised niches, to make the most of all the available nutrients. Yet, after a while, forests can become so densely connected that they become increasingly vulnerable to an external shock, such as fire, which can spread very fast.

The world being created by the web is rather like a fast-growing forest - increasingly dense, diverse and connected. When the web really is ubiquitous, will it become more like a forest that is so densely interconnected that a small fire can quickly sweep through vast areas of woodland?

Much will depend on whether the we-think culture can rise to the challenges that are facing us. We are compelled to share our ideas; that is how they come to life. And when we share ideas they multiply and grow, forming a powerfully reinforcing circle. You are not defined simply by what you own. You are also what you share.

From: myjoyonline.com

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