The google SEO guide offered up a lot of information on making a website more likely to be picked up by a search engine. This topic is particularly relevant with the strong advertising that bing.com has been running in an effort to pull users to their site from the dominant google. There are many methods for making your website more search oriented, many of which I was unaware.
Perhaps the most puzzling to me was the advice that the google .pdf gave on url's.
At one point it says, "Also, it can create easier, 'friendlier' URLs for those that want to link to your content. Visitors may be intimidated by extremely long and cryptic URLs that contain few recognizable words."
This seems funny to me as I have never found a url to be "unfirendly" or "cryptic". I suppose that linking up a really long url can be annoying simply because you have to make sure that you copy the entire url, but I can honestly say that I have never been offended or discouraged by a url with many numbers.
The two blog posts that I read were about google handing out penalties for using certain anchor tags. As i fought may way through the nerd jargon of this gem (http://www.wolf-howl.com/google/google-profiles-seo/) I had trouble extracting meaning. I think that this was partially a result of being unaware of google's seo methods. I think that he was bitching about bloggers accepting gifts in exchange for seo preference. This brings up a question of journalistic ethics. Being that bloggers are not beholden to a news agency (unless they are blogging for a news site) they enter an ethical gray area in whether it is ethical for them to accept gifts.
In the other blog that I read (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/widgetbait-gone-wild) the author discusses putting references to websites that were unrelated to the topic of the website in the anchor tags and such. This annoyed users to the point where they were complaining to google and his company got some bad press. This suggests that users will not look at a site simply because it comes up in a google search, and that if there is some trickery going on the user will have an adverse reaction to the company responsible. This is yet another reason why simplicity is best when trying to improve SEO. The best rule is to simplify the search for both the user and the search engine.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Optimizing in More Than One Way
My head almost starts spinning when thinking about all the ways to increase search engine optimization for a Web site. I’ve missed so many opportunities over the past couple years writing my blog to gain money from Google AdSense (not that I would have made that much money, but you never know), and even in just knowing that more people could have read and commented on my work because I just placed content on a site without paying attention to search engine optimization.
A Web site could have the world’s best content, but it no one can find it, it’s useless. Search Engine Optimization is another way to draw users to your site and possibly get a return on all your hard work creating that content.
John Chow’s Web site is a great example of how search engine optimization, along with well-placed online ads can turn into a lucrative venture. Chow now makes $40,000 a month from the ads on his site. How does he get the money from the ads? Because people are led to his site through things like meta-tags, but also, because he provides useful searchable content (commentary that is sometimes corny, but hey- it worked for him!) that gives people advice on how to make money online themselves—content that is highly valuable.
I feel like many of the things that will rank your page higher, such as giving your pages descriptive titles, creating strong content, and organizing pages logically will also make your job maintaining the Web site easier. For example, this PR-Inside article recommends naming all your images with their real names and including a description in the alt tag. It seems obvious, but when building a site in a hurry, it could be easy to just post a picture without adding alt tags or naming it something descriptive. Organizing images and giving them alt descriptions not only makes the site more searchable, but causes the creators of the site to evaluate the worth of the images, in turn helping them make better decisions about what to place on the site.
Search engine optimization can also benefit from using social media to help promote your page. Besides keeping the image of an organization current and providing information in a number of places, it helps drive traffic to both the social media site and the Web site or a company.
According to this Larry Brauner’s Online Social Networking Blog, linking to social media not only drives new users to your Web site, but also increased the amount of links to and from your site, which also increases your page rank. Using social media as part of your Web presence is smart for a number of reasons.
A Web site could have the world’s best content, but it no one can find it, it’s useless. Search Engine Optimization is another way to draw users to your site and possibly get a return on all your hard work creating that content.
John Chow’s Web site is a great example of how search engine optimization, along with well-placed online ads can turn into a lucrative venture. Chow now makes $40,000 a month from the ads on his site. How does he get the money from the ads? Because people are led to his site through things like meta-tags, but also, because he provides useful searchable content (commentary that is sometimes corny, but hey- it worked for him!) that gives people advice on how to make money online themselves—content that is highly valuable.
I feel like many of the things that will rank your page higher, such as giving your pages descriptive titles, creating strong content, and organizing pages logically will also make your job maintaining the Web site easier. For example, this PR-Inside article recommends naming all your images with their real names and including a description in the alt tag. It seems obvious, but when building a site in a hurry, it could be easy to just post a picture without adding alt tags or naming it something descriptive. Organizing images and giving them alt descriptions not only makes the site more searchable, but causes the creators of the site to evaluate the worth of the images, in turn helping them make better decisions about what to place on the site.
Search engine optimization can also benefit from using social media to help promote your page. Besides keeping the image of an organization current and providing information in a number of places, it helps drive traffic to both the social media site and the Web site or a company.
According to this Larry Brauner’s Online Social Networking Blog, linking to social media not only drives new users to your Web site, but also increased the amount of links to and from your site, which also increases your page rank. Using social media as part of your Web presence is smart for a number of reasons.
SEO
Of all the things that Google mentioned in the .pdf it was the simple practices that interested me the most. I often finding directory structures and file names to be a hodgepodge of odd folders and files. Google suggests structuring your page with easily understandable directories. This helps me if I find myself at a page like doxtad.com/sandwiches/ham.html. Oftentimes I'll get to a page like this and I'll realize that I want to reach a directory of all sandwiches, so I'll delete the ham part. But it doesn't take me anywhere. It's even worse if the file is more like /sudo/snd/wch/new.html. Who does this? Everyone. Certainly no one can be surprised when Google's bots get lost in this mess.
Another interesting thing I found in this was the nofollow relationship value. I guess I'd never understood what that means, but now that Prof. Masiclat has explained how Google indexes and ranks pages it makes sense that people wouldn't necessarily want to be associated with all of their outbound links. Other simple things like appropriate page titles and alt text for images is something I think most people take as a given, but when they aren't there it makes for trouble, and not just with SEO.
SEO gets a lot of talk these days. And you know what else does? Twitter!
This mashable article on SEO and Twitter is especially interesting. If anyone has been Googling themselves lately they might have noticed their Twitter profile is shooting up the ranks. This could become especially interesting if Google begins indexing Tweets to provide a real-time search results. For companies this could provide a way of leading organic search results by providing light speed information.
SEO For Life!!!
If Search Engine Optimization is not the most interesting thing in the world then I guess the Pope is not Catholic. Okay, sorry bad joke. But seriously, I really enjoy learning about SEO and how its critical to the success of companies and website traffic. According to Wikipedia, it is very important as a web developer to increase relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. As a web designer the ultimate goal is for your website to appear first in an organic search. Obviously, a large budget to promote brand awareness helps a site immensely, however a good SEO strategy helps too. I found a blog by Patrick Gavin who is announcing a new project that he is working on. DIYSEO, a company designed to solve a simple problem: Small businesses with limited budgets, time, and online know-how need basic SEO help. The product is a couple months away from public launch, but for small business owners this may be a great tool to help them create a successful business.
I have chosen to develop a website for my Dad. He is a Veteran of the Vietnam War and he has written a book accounting for his experience as a Army Ranger. The book is an amazing read and one worthy of a web site dedicated to it. I think a tool such as DIYSEO would be an important investment for this project. Although I plan on utilizing keywords such as Vietnam, Army Rangers, etc., I also want to create some buzz using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. I plan on creating a "Group" in Facebook to promote by dads book and I will also announce the website on Twitter.
I have chosen to develop a website for my Dad. He is a Veteran of the Vietnam War and he has written a book accounting for his experience as a Army Ranger. The book is an amazing read and one worthy of a web site dedicated to it. I think a tool such as DIYSEO would be an important investment for this project. Although I plan on utilizing keywords such as Vietnam, Army Rangers, etc., I also want to create some buzz using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. I plan on creating a "Group" in Facebook to promote by dads book and I will also announce the website on Twitter.
Monday, November 16, 2009
S-E-Ohhhhhh....
I found the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (publicly posted just a year ago on Nov. 13 2008) very helpful for getting my head around SEO, a concept I’ve heard and only basically understood.
Interestingly enough, I found the pdf by clicking the SECOND link after my Google search (before I realized it was on Blackboard..oops). At the top of the article was a link to the guide.
I really felt the following quote was the ultimate guiding principle of SEO:
“base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what's best for the visitors of your site.” This .pdf made a great point about not worrying so much how to get your site at the top of the search results, but make sure that the rare, odd, and even strange people who will want to come to your website for people with a vampire fetish can find your portal before sunrise, and not, say, aim to inundate general vampire enthusiasts with their sordid ways.
Using unique titles also seemed like a really easy, strong way to increase SEO - both by putting the name of the site and also describing the main content of each page. So easy it’s painful to think of sites not doing!
By providing quality content and unique content, you can easily translate the design into social media buzz. Bloggers will heap on the encomiums; you’ll soon have a facebook fan page (not sure the practicality of that, but to FB users they’ll see you have a following and can register on Google like personal accounts do). Depending on how often your content changes or what type of content/services you provide, a twitter account could work for you, gaining greater exposure.
The idea of metadata also seems really easy to do.
What’s fascinating, to me, is the idea of breaking out of the “sandbox” which Search Result No. 9 and SEO blogger Patrick Gavin (soon to launch a site called DIYSEO.com) talks about here. SEO seems to be about breaking out of dev databases and into the live search results. A process Gavin distills to “quality links + time” after observing that Google releases sites in batches into their live results from tracking databases. Perhaps for the depth of links and titles about SEO, the other results appearing before Gavin were for firms you could hire for SEO, not necessarily the good resources you'd like to read to learn more about it. Interestingly, Google also talks about things to watch out for when looking to do SEO and what some unethical people are doing out there here.
It seems that this notion - of increasing SEO - relates back to that principle of design that remains meaningful across media: keep it simple. Make the words clear, concise and write with an audience in mind - how will they use your site (hierarchy), what will they likely be looking for (simplicity in navigation and in the copy you use). Functionality!
NOTE: Wikipedia was number one, and I resent that and also plan to protest by not using anything from it in the writing of this post.
SECOND NOTE: I feel as if this is surprisingly un-witty and entertaining. For that I apologize.
Interestingly enough, I found the pdf by clicking the SECOND link after my Google search (before I realized it was on Blackboard..oops). At the top of the article was a link to the guide.
I really felt the following quote was the ultimate guiding principle of SEO:
“base your optimization decisions first and foremost on what's best for the visitors of your site.” This .pdf made a great point about not worrying so much how to get your site at the top of the search results, but make sure that the rare, odd, and even strange people who will want to come to your website for people with a vampire fetish can find your portal before sunrise, and not, say, aim to inundate general vampire enthusiasts with their sordid ways.
Using unique titles also seemed like a really easy, strong way to increase SEO - both by putting the name of the site and also describing the main content of each page. So easy it’s painful to think of sites not doing!
By providing quality content and unique content, you can easily translate the design into social media buzz. Bloggers will heap on the encomiums; you’ll soon have a facebook fan page (not sure the practicality of that, but to FB users they’ll see you have a following and can register on Google like personal accounts do). Depending on how often your content changes or what type of content/services you provide, a twitter account could work for you, gaining greater exposure.
The idea of metadata also seems really easy to do.
What’s fascinating, to me, is the idea of breaking out of the “sandbox” which Search Result No. 9 and SEO blogger Patrick Gavin (soon to launch a site called DIYSEO.com) talks about here. SEO seems to be about breaking out of dev databases and into the live search results. A process Gavin distills to “quality links + time” after observing that Google releases sites in batches into their live results from tracking databases. Perhaps for the depth of links and titles about SEO, the other results appearing before Gavin were for firms you could hire for SEO, not necessarily the good resources you'd like to read to learn more about it. Interestingly, Google also talks about things to watch out for when looking to do SEO and what some unethical people are doing out there here.
It seems that this notion - of increasing SEO - relates back to that principle of design that remains meaningful across media: keep it simple. Make the words clear, concise and write with an audience in mind - how will they use your site (hierarchy), what will they likely be looking for (simplicity in navigation and in the copy you use). Functionality!
NOTE: Wikipedia was number one, and I resent that and also plan to protest by not using anything from it in the writing of this post.
SECOND NOTE: I feel as if this is surprisingly un-witty and entertaining. For that I apologize.
Ways to Promote Your Site
Getting more traffic for your web site is always a tedious and hard job. I feel that the most important aspect of this is hard work. You can have all the strategies or connections you want for a site, but I think it all comes down to how willing you are to spend time updating and plugging. From my experience, social networking sites are a great way to promote yourself and your content.
Your base audience or customers should be not only your best friends, but also those who have similar interests. Even some of your closest friends or relatives might check up on what you are doing, but if they aren’t interested in that topic, they probably won’t return. So fish out those who don’t want to be involved and find those people who are genuinely interested in the topic. That’s hard to do, but that’s where the social networking comes into play. With avenues to reach thousands of people, your site will catch the eye of a couple of people along the way.
Here are two sites with solid tips: http://webnet77.com/webstuff/tips.html
http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-to-get-more-weekend-traffic-for-your-website/
From the reading Jeff gave us and also these articles, I learned that the best ways to optimize your search engine is to be simple. Your page descriptions and your page headers should tell exactly what the page is about, but in a very simple way. The search engines should never be confused when looking at your page. The fastest way to get to the top of a google search is to use common language, but words that accurately describe what makes your site different or unique.
In my own experience, I’ve always put emphasis on using the social networking sites to spread knowledge of what I am doing. I feel it is the easiest way; whenever someone goes on and sees a link you’ve put up for a site, they will often click on it to visit. Obviously, once there the content has to be something they enjoy and needs to be presented in a professional manner. All of that comes from practice and experience.
Ultimately, you want your web site to stand out for it’s content, not for it’s wording. A search engine appreciates being able to quickly find out what makes you site special. While visitors will want content that suits what they like, nothing is worse business than having a poorly run or constructed web page.
Your base audience or customers should be not only your best friends, but also those who have similar interests. Even some of your closest friends or relatives might check up on what you are doing, but if they aren’t interested in that topic, they probably won’t return. So fish out those who don’t want to be involved and find those people who are genuinely interested in the topic. That’s hard to do, but that’s where the social networking comes into play. With avenues to reach thousands of people, your site will catch the eye of a couple of people along the way.
Here are two sites with solid tips: http://webnet77.com/webstuff/tips.html
http://www.doshdosh.com/ways-to-get-more-weekend-traffic-for-your-website/
From the reading Jeff gave us and also these articles, I learned that the best ways to optimize your search engine is to be simple. Your page descriptions and your page headers should tell exactly what the page is about, but in a very simple way. The search engines should never be confused when looking at your page. The fastest way to get to the top of a google search is to use common language, but words that accurately describe what makes your site different or unique.
In my own experience, I’ve always put emphasis on using the social networking sites to spread knowledge of what I am doing. I feel it is the easiest way; whenever someone goes on and sees a link you’ve put up for a site, they will often click on it to visit. Obviously, once there the content has to be something they enjoy and needs to be presented in a professional manner. All of that comes from practice and experience.
Ultimately, you want your web site to stand out for it’s content, not for it’s wording. A search engine appreciates being able to quickly find out what makes you site special. While visitors will want content that suits what they like, nothing is worse business than having a poorly run or constructed web page.
SEO is just the First Step
This .pdf was a great introduction to the concept of Search Engine Optimization. Everyone wants to know how to be the top result on a Google search, either for personal shits and giggles or to improve business. Barely anyone takes the time to spruce up their site's content to achieve this goal.
So much of this can be done by the writers. Any good writer should be able to summarize the purpose of their piece in a paragraph or two with little effort. Put this up in the head section of the page's code and you've got a kick-ass description meta tag. The same goes with page titles. The key is to be precise and straightforward. These are just old skills applied in new ways.
While this file focuses largely on improving a website, it does briefly mention promoting that kick-ass site. This is where the article I found on Facebook Marketing could be helpful. The part I found most useful is at the end where it mentions how important it is to allow your Fans to share content from your page. This is not so much user-generated content, a concept over which everyone s going gaga these days, as it is user-generated advertising. The benefit of this approach is it is essentially free but does not affect the quality of your product.
Of course, this is much easier for a small company than for a large one. Once your site has either thousands or millions of pages it might be useful to employ the services of an SEO firm. Some engage in real-life human interaction while others utilize software. One newer company getting some buzz is an Israeli company called RankAbove.
As an aside, I find it funny that the two links in this post on SEO have absolutely horrendous urls. Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think?
So much of this can be done by the writers. Any good writer should be able to summarize the purpose of their piece in a paragraph or two with little effort. Put this up in the head section of the page's code and you've got a kick-ass description meta tag. The same goes with page titles. The key is to be precise and straightforward. These are just old skills applied in new ways.
While this file focuses largely on improving a website, it does briefly mention promoting that kick-ass site. This is where the article I found on Facebook Marketing could be helpful. The part I found most useful is at the end where it mentions how important it is to allow your Fans to share content from your page. This is not so much user-generated content, a concept over which everyone s going gaga these days, as it is user-generated advertising. The benefit of this approach is it is essentially free but does not affect the quality of your product.
Of course, this is much easier for a small company than for a large one. Once your site has either thousands or millions of pages it might be useful to employ the services of an SEO firm. Some engage in real-life human interaction while others utilize software. One newer company getting some buzz is an Israeli company called RankAbove.
As an aside, I find it funny that the two links in this post on SEO have absolutely horrendous urls. Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think?
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