Free SEO Tutorial
So you have spent many hours working on your website. The design looks good, your navigation works properly, and you have invested a tremendous amount of time developing all the content.
Now you want people to see your work and purchase your goods or services. You can use paid ads and/or you could receive visitors from the search engines. Natural search engine rankings from Google and Yahoo are the most important today.
I will give you an outline of the most effective methods (best practices) available today. Most people dramatically underestimate how much work is involved and that it takes ongoing weekly work if you want to achieve the maximum results. Google now updates its index on a daily basis.
Some of the basic topics covered in this e-book are:
1. Choosing your domain name(s).
Have two domain names with related but different content. You can sell the same products or services on both domain names. Our testing has show that Google uses over 100 different algorithms for evaluating and ranking web pages. Having one domain name with your keywords in it and having one domain name that is easy to remember is recommended.
A good domain is:
- short,
- easy to say and spell,
- descriptive
Do not use too many keywords this will dilute the effectiveness of you ranking in the major search engines.
Example of a bad domain name choice:
www.tools-drills-saw-tile-motors-cars-trucks-boats-trains-horses-dogs-cats.com
Example of a good domain name choice:
www.tile-saw.com
- memorable
- distinctive
- keyword rich
You should be able to say it over the telephone without having to spell it or explain it further. Today it is wise to have two or more domain names.
There are search engine optimization experts who maintain that you don't need keywords in your domain. I've done some research on this, it seems that it does make a difference - especially at Google. I've also asked this question in a discussion forum and the consensus was that it's a nice-to-have rather than a must-have.
Our research has shown that having keywords in your domain name can help your rankings, however it is not the only factor evaluated by the search engines.
Think of a ranking matrix with over 100 variables and a weighting system for all these variables, this is a simple way to understand how a search engine evaluates and ranks web sites.
So different combinations of factors can add up to override one factor. Go to Google not Goggle and type "Internet marketing company", notice some of the top 10 ranked sites have Internet or marketing or company in their domain names some do not. Also use the Google toolbar and look at the PageRank for the top ten ranked sites. PageRank is an advanced subject that we will discuss in detail later in this e-book / guide.
2. Which keywords are most important for you (keyword research).
One of the most important decisions you will make in your search engine optimization campaign is which keywords to target.
3. How competitive are your keywords, do NOT expect to be number one for "marketing" on Google.
We need to think like search engines.
If you are not positioned to be where your customer is when your customer is ready to buy, you lose.
Your competitor who is in that place at that time wins.
You want to be positioned where your customer is looking and you want to be ranked above your competitors.
Approximately 70% of users, if they click, will click on one the first three listings in a search engine.
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To obtain top 30 placement on the spider-driven search engines (such as Google, AllTheWeb, Teoma, AltaVista, etc.), you need to include your most important keyword phrase in your title tag, in body text, in headlines, in ALT tags, and in text links. Plus you need to have text links into your site from other (preferably related) sites, where your keywords appear in the anchor text. This is critical. If done properly, you will achieve excellent top 30 rankings.
Use linkpartners.com and linksmanager.com if you what to accelerate your success.
Submitting your site to the search engines each month is a waste of time.
Achieving a top 10 ranking involves a great deal of specialized knowledge in a field where things are constantly in flux. If you don't have the time to spend doing the research, consider outsourcing to an SEO professional to get that top 10 positioning.
Obtaining top rankings in the search engines is not an easy job, especially for some of the more competitive keywords. Having the right information makes it much easier, however. To obtain top rankings on the most competitive keywords, it may take hundreds of hours of your time, and you will have to wait two or more months to begin to see any results. However, the return on your invested time will be more than worth your efforts. The money you save by receiving traffic at no charge instead of paying per click to receive traffic will alone make your time well spent.
I thank you for reading this e-book and wish you the very best.
Kind regards,
Bill Kirk
http://www.HTPcompany.com
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Please see more useful information below.
The Basics of Search Engine Optimization
A key to search engine positioning is submitting at the proper time. Before you submit your site you must make sure it is ready. There are a number of steps you must take to properly prepare your site for submission.
So how do you make your site ready to be submitted to the search engines? Throughout this guide I will discuss in detail, step-by-step, how to ensure your site is ready to be submitted. Here are the four basic steps.
Steps of Page Optimization
- Select the keywords you want to focus on - keyword research
- Use your keywords in your title, proper title tags
- Create an optimized page for each of your targeted keywords by having ample page copy, focusing on keyword prominence, proper alt-tags, heading tags, and text links.
- Do NOT use dynamic database-driven content, JavaScript, keyword spamming, frames, flash and multiple use of content.
- Make sure there are many web sites linking to yours.
You may already have learned most of the above. However, the main problem is not knowing you have to do each of the above steps, but rather, knowing how to properly execute each step.
Profiles of the Major Search Engines
As I stated above, one problem leading to so much confusion is that search engine technology, spidering capabilities, ranking criteria, and strategic alliances are all changing rapidly.
So let’s take a look at each of the major search engines.
First, however, let me make a very important distinction. Most people know who the major players are in the world of search engines. However, few know from where the search results come on each of these major engines. Many people believe that each provides its own results. This leads them to think they must submit to every single engine individually and manage their listings on each. This is simply not true.
About 50%+ of all search results come from Google or search engines that Google supplies results to. These include AOL, Ask, Alexa, etc.
This will most likely change in the future and we will update this document as changes occur.
Yahoo’s main results changed from human directory listings to Google’s in October 2002. Then in April of 2004 Yahoo switched to Inktomi results, which Yahoo now owns. Yahoo also owns Overture which used to be called Goto. I thought Goto was a much better name. As a side note Yahoo results were poor (sucked) compared to Google results until just after Google went public. Gee why might that be? Yahoo owned 18% of Google, than very soon after Google went public in August of 2004, Yahoo results became great even better than Google's. I think Yahoo may have wanted to cash out before they hit Google with their new great technology. MSN also pulls results from Inktomi. However as of November of 2004 MSN as a wonderful new beta search engine that seems to offer outstanding results. These are the big three, Google, Yahoo and MSN / MSN beta.
You really only must submit to five locations to be listed on all of them. These are Google, Inktomi, Teoma, and Altavista and pay Yahoo $300 per year to be listed in there directory. However recently I have noticed Yahoo putting good sites in there search engine without people paying to be in their directory. Of these five, Google is undoubtedly the most important as it supplies listings for its own engine, AOL Search, and the default Netscape Search, among others. If you paid Yahoo to be in their directory you can not change your title tag that shows up in the Yahoo search results. So really think long and hard before you pay Yahoo you $300 a year and tell them who your title is. Which by the way their editors may change if they approve you at all. I think some of this may have changed, and Yahoo has not contacted me to pay the an annual directory fee. I hope they contact me if I have to pay again and do not just drop my site out of their index. This whole thing makes me very angry because back in 1998, I paid for a life time membership in the Yahoo Directory. I guess life time only means five years to Yahoo.
Although there is no definitive proof that extensive amounts of java script negatively effect search engine placement, observation of spider's habits does show that excessive java script can cause problems for a spider. Thus, whenever possible, JavaScript should be placed in an external .js file and simply called from the HTML code.
Creating an external java script file is quite simple and allows you to reference the same script from several pages without having to duplicate the code. Simply save your java script as a text file with a .js extension on it. To refer to this script from your HTML code, simply call the file similar to how you would call an include or image file.
< script src="filename.js" type="javascript" >< /script >
This code will tell the browser to apply the java script it finds in that location to that spot of your web page. The java script will function normally when someone views the page with a browser, but will not be read by a search engine spider as it indexes your web site.
Because search engines are unable to read java script, navigation systems built entirely with java script (such as drop-down menus) are neither read, nor indexed by spiders. Just as sites featuring Flash navigation must provide spiders with an alternative route to follow links, sites using java script navigation should include a duplicate, textual navigation system at the bottom of the page.
Our Case Study
In this e-book / guide we will be looking at a fictional business to develop a
Choosing your domain names
Selecting Your Keywords
Selecting the keywords you want to focus on is one of the two most important steps in search engine optimization. Many web site owners or developers will simply list some related keywords in their meta tags and sporadically throughout their sales copy without any thought, structure, or plan.
- How many searches per month are done on each of these keywords across all search engines? This can be checked by using Overtures keyword tools (sometimes this is misleading) e.g. seo company. How many are enough? Use www.wordtracker.com
- How many other web sites have used the same keywords on their websites?
- How difficult it will be for you to gain a number one, ten, or thirty position on each engine?
- Exactly which keywords you should focus on to maximize the return on your invested time.
How can these four crucial sets of data be collected? Well, you will need to use a few different tools.
First, let’s do some brainstorming. Open up a Word file and make a list of the ten keywords you believe are most important to you. Do not make a list of very specific keywords, but rather, general, yet still related, keywords that you think are receiving many searches.
Below is an example doing this using one of the most competitive keywords "Marketing"
- Marketing
- Internet Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Advertising
- .....
- .....
Now, that you have your ten main keywords, you can use two tools to both extend and analyze your list.
The first tool I recommend using is Wordtracker. Wordtracker’s strengths are in providing data on related keywords, the number searches done in the past month and twenty-four hours on each selected keyword, and exactly how many other web sites are competing to be in the listings for each selected keyword. Wordtracker provides a free trial service, and for most, this will be all you’ll need.
Go to http://www.wordtracker.com/trial/ and start a trial. Then, in step two, type in the first of your main keywords and select up to thirty related keywords. Then continue on to do the analysis on these keywords.
Here is a screenshot of the final report.
Copy and paste this data to Word or Excel. Then repeat your free trial as many times as you need so that you analyze all your main and related keywords.
Now, at the end of this process you will have a listing of perhaps a hundred or so unique and related keywords with complete data on recent searches performed, number of competitors, and Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) analysis.
I tend to focus in on both the KEI analysis and the monthly count. The higher the KEI Analysis figure the better. Essentially, a high number means that there are a lot of people searching for the specific keyword but not too many web sites out there who are targeting that keyword.
By using Wordtracker you have developed an extended list of potential keywords and determined which will give you the highest return on your invested time.
Keyword List Building Tool Two
Now let’s use a second tool to further extend our list of keywords. In practice, it does not matter which of these tools you use first. In fact, you may wish to use them simultaneously for maximum benefit.
This second tool is the Search Term Suggestion Tool from Overture. You may already use Overture as part of your CPC strategy.
Overture is a pay-pay-per click search engine that provides search results based on the amount companies are willing to pay to be listed for each keyword. Some of the amounts paid to be in the top three listings on Overture. The listings that are syndicated on six of the ten major search engines are very high. Top bids will range from $0.20 on obscure keywords to up to $25.00 per click for the keyword casino. Adwords from Goggle is Overtures main competitor, and as of today Goggle Adwords provides a better value and return on investment.
Make sure your customer acquisition cost does not exceed the present value of the lifetime value of an average customer. However, since the reason you are reading this guide is to get top listings in the search engines so that you receive free targeted traffic to your site, I would suggest focusing your efforts first on search engine positioning before you begin to test CPC engines.
Even if you do not have an account with Overture, however, you can use their Search Engine Suggestion Tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) to generate an extensive list of potential keywords and determine exactly how many searches were done on that keyword in the previous month.
Go to the Search Engine Suggestion Tool via the link above.
Step two: Now, compare the number of searches done in Overture with the respective results for the keyword from WordTracker to further refine your keyword priority list. Your goal now is to divide your keyword list into three priority levels. Take the top thirty keywords with the highest KEI Analysis figures and most traffic and put these in your A-list. Take the next thirty keywords and put them in your B-list. Put all the remaining keywords in your C-list.
Samples of keyword phrases for a Mortgage Company below.
Hi,
I will phone you to discuss keyword phrases for HTP to focus on.
What do you think your most important keywords should be?
We want to focus on keywords with scores (see below) of 9000 and higher.
If there are niche specialties you and your partners have and / or more profitable segments of business to focus on, also consider these factors when making you keyword selection.
Please brainstorm with your partners on this. It is a very important phrase of the SEO process. If we choose the wrong keywords our results will suffer.
The number leading the phrase indicates the frequency of searches or "popularity"
65308 refinance mortgage
55757 mortgage loan
46036 mortgage broker
43835 home mortgage
39249 mortgage company
28661 mortgage lead
26345 gmac mortgage
26326 second mortgage
26005 mortgage interest rate
24459 refinancing mortgage
23342 mortgage lender
21904 countrywide mortgage
21459 national city mortgage
20310 well fargo home mortgage
17469 reverse mortgage
16725 well fargo mortgage
16514 home mortgage loan
16421 current mortgage rate
15343 chase manhattan mortgage
15091 chase mortgage
12481 bad credit mortgage
12166 mortgage payment calculator
11338 option one mortgage
10860 california mortgage
10713 mortgage loan calculator
10321 2nd mortgage
9935 home mortgage rate
9843 mortgage loan lead
9648 ameriquest mortgage
9004 internet mortgage lead
8921 florida mortgage
8796 home mortgage loan california
8632 commercial mortgage
8527 interest only mortgage
Best regards,
Tom Forrest
Phone: 805-807-4645
http://www.HTPcompany.com
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Congratulations, you now have a prioritized list of top related keywords. Now, let’s learn how to make your site show up in the top listings for each one of these keywords.
Important Note: In the section below, Creating Optimized Pages, I will show you how you can create an optimized page for each of your targeted keywords. Optimizing every page on your site for a separate targeted keyword phase is important for increasing the number of searches your site comes up on and can be effective in obtaining top rankings on specific keyword phrases. You can ONLY go after two to three keyword phrases per web page. Anymore and you will be penalized and therefore not achieve your desired results.
Do note that for the most competitive keywords, however, you will need to optimize either your home page or purchase a separate keyword-rich domain name to have a chance at being in the top rankings for these terms. For information on obtaining a top ranking on highly competitive ...
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Advanced Topics
Clients who hire SEO / Internet Marketing Companies should think long term, 1 year and 5 year plans.
It takes Google 1 - 4 months, generally about three months to properly incorporate new pages, changes to pages a few levels down in a web site and backlinks. So it takes about two months before we really can / should make changes to a web site (on page optimization).
AlltheWeb indexes everything the quickest. Not very many people use AlltheWeb.
The other search engines like Alta Vista, MSN, might take 4 months to update there indexes or longer. They do not seem to spider as much as he Internet as Google does and certainly not as often.
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Warning Google changes the rules so often it can give you a bad headache :)
Google Terminology 12-6-04
Partially indexed vs. Fully indexed pages
I should use proper Google terminology to be clear.
Google calls pages Not in the Google cache and only shows the url, Not the title or description partially indexed. This is funny because Google should call them "you are screwed" indexed. Because when your pages are partially indexed you are screwed.
Partially indexed pages are not cached, can not come up for any keyword search and have a PR of 0. Also they can not pass PageRank because they have none and any good links pointed to these partially indexed pages go to waste.
Pages that are cached, can be found by some keyword search, show the title and description and have PR are called fully indexed by Google.
I some times refer to partially indexed pages as not indexed, because they really are not indexed. I should say partially indexed = you are screwed by Google.
I just wanted to make sure you are a where of the official Google terminology and what it really means.
We are continually adding new links pointing to our web sites. The more sites that think you have excellent content, the more web sites that will link to you.
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Frequently asked questions and answers below.
Hi,
Seriously what type of attitude is that! I've looked at the top sites
for the three main SEO phrases and they aren't that well optimized and
though the phrases are gone after by those who are meant to know what
they are doing it's not as competitive as a lot of other keywords.
So when you get your first big client are you going to say sorry, that
keyword is too difficult for me, I can get you this totally useless
phrase though!
Take the top site for Search Engine Optimization - http://www.
seoinc.com/ PR6 home page 500+ backlinks allinurl: just 55 pages
(either small site, or not very many pages indexable).
'allinanchor:Search Engine Optimization' shows this site as number 1,
this means that page has the 'most' (not number, but combination of
number and quality i.e. high PR) links to it using that exact phrase
as anchor text.
Looking at the page-
First thing I notice is an error reported by IE6, so probably got some
script error.
Looking at source (no right click, afraid we'll steal their work :-))
after clicking file, view, source I get to see the source. First thing
I notice-
Well that was a waste of space, these are the default so not needed.
then I see-
Old technique that doesn't work in Google so another waste of space.
then a bunch of stuff in the
Next comes a load of Flash code pushing the real content down the page.
I now see they use this table summary a lot, talk about spamming.
Not tested this technique (though tried it once before researching
SEO) but doubt it works (something for me to research when I have
time).
Next I see-
The contents of title="" (title="search engine optimization") is
ignored by Google. Also how many pages are they optimizing that phrase
for (one is enough).
Look at this for spam, it's the black line near the bottom of the page
and shouldn't have alt text-
Unfortunately it doesn't work, Google ignores alt text of standard
images.
Big mistake on this bit-
Home
Only an idiot would use Home as the anchor text of a text link.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/15466.htm
For example, search engines typically rank a page in part on keyword prominence or how early in the text of a page a keyword appears. They also look for the concentration of a given keyword on the page. Thus, “If your site is selling microwave ovens, but those words don’t appear until far down on a page, you’re not going to do well
It's not what you say about yourself - it's what other people say about you! So, what does that mean? And how does it apply to search engine optimisation? Well the answer is this: search engines pay more attention to the links which point back to you from other sites than what you write on your ownweb pages. And it's not just the number of links:it's the quality of those links and what text they contain.
I'd just quote Larry Page and Sergey Brin:
"Google is designed to provide higher quality search so as the Web continues to grow rapidly, information can be found easily. In order to accomplish this Google makes heavy use of hypertextual information consisting of link structure and link (anchor) text. Google also uses proximity and font information. As for link text, we are experimenting with using text surrounding links in addition to the link text itself."
I hope that helps to resolve a little mystery and believe me, you'll be quite surprised at some of the other clues which linkage data and the text surrounding links can give to a search engine. We're beginning to write in a different genre in HTML for the web and it's absolutely fascinating.
Hi
I'm trying to understand the impact and value of reciprical links.
From all my readings and my personal experience high search engine rankings are dependant on two componets; 1) good seo at the site and page level, and 2) a good number of reciprical links, the higher the page rank the better.
Can anyone tell me if there is a guide line for the number of reciprical links needed for good rankings.
Thanks
That all depends on how much competition you have. If you are selling blue widgets to someone in Phoenix, Arizona and there is no one else who sells these as well as no sites, you need very few if any.
On the other hand if you are a mortgage company marketing nationwide, then you'll need a lot.
Of course the foundational ones are the directories, paid and non-paid which include Yahoo, Looksmart, Business.com, Open Directory, GoGuides.org, JoeAnt and Gimpsy.
Besides that you can conduct a search related to your scope of business and then check to see who is linking to your competition to see if there might be a possibility that those same sites will link to you.
Bottom line, as Jill always makes reference to is to make your site the best it can be, always improving upon it and people will naturally want to link to it.
Hope that helps
Thanks for the reply.
I realize that there isn't a set answer, but I'm trying to gain a handle on how many links are needed.
As an example, we sell personalized stuffed animals. Using ther search term "teddy bear gifts" our site ranks number 6 on google. If I look at the link popularity using www.marketleap.com, we have roughly 7,000 links. When I look at the listings above ours the 5 place contender has 26,000 links, but the 1st through 4th positions have between 1,000 to 3,000 links.
Given that scenario it can't be just about link popularity.
You are exactly right! It isn't just about Link Popularity. It helps. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I think that I've read somewhere before that Google factors in 100 or so different elements in their algorithm, Link Popularity being one of those.
That's pretty good though, # 6 for "teddy bear gifts" when there are so many teddy bear and gifts site out there. Great job
Great advice, David. Two variables that come to mind are:
1. The PageRank of each of the pages linking to you.
2. The anchor text used within the links to your site.
I'd say to you (and this is just my take on things - anyone else feel free to debate what I say):
Number of incoming links is all very well, and link pop obviously makes a difference to your rankings, but it's not the only thing you should consider as part of your link building strategy. I would argue that Relevance is just as important.
Loads of incoming links from sites that bear no relation to yours may help your ranking a bit, but it's my understanding that SE's weigh the value of each incoming link in terms of how relevant it is to your site. I think they do this by analyzing the text within and around the anchor tags of each incoming link.
Think of each incoming link as a vote for your site (not my analogy - might be Jill's). OK every vote counts, but what is the value of a vote from someone who knows nothing about what they're voting for?
The other thing to think about is that your link building work is not solely for the benefit of SEs. Real live surfers will see the links too (and this could represent a large portion of your incoming traffic) - and the more relevant your site is to the one they're reading, the more likely they are to click through to yours.
Hope this helps...
A possible look into the near future is a patent app filed by Google for LocalRank.
The way I understand it, the results you see now will be subjected to a secondary sort where duplicates and same-domain results are filtered out. Then the remaining results are re-sorted based on how they link to each other.
Getting a link, reciprocal or otherwise, from a site that would appear in the same SERP is going to have a powerful effect on the final ordering of results.
So, get links but focus on the ones that are truly relevant. Those are typically the ones that bring traffic on their own anyway- how can you lose?
Nope. It's got nothing at all to do with reciprocal links. This is a big misconception that people have for some reason.
The search engines don't care if someone reciprocates your link. And in fact, as others have stated this may even be less value if they do.
What you want is links pointing to your site. Not reciprocal links. (They are fine, but that's not what the engines are looking for.)
Hello all,
Reciprocal links are not a vote they are an arrangement, and Google is very aware of this. So I think it is safe to say reciprocal links do not carry the weight that a single IBL (In Bound Link) carries.
Loads of incoming links from sites that bear no relation to yours may help your ranking a bit, but it's my understanding that SE's weigh the value of each incoming link in terms of how relevant it is to your site. I think they do this by analyzing the text within and around the anchor tags of each incoming
link.
Now if someone has some evidence that link relevance or text surrounding a link make a difference in the SERP, I would love to take a look at it.
Hello,
My company is a small but growing SEO firm and I have learned a lot from reading SEO materials.
Regarding link building strategies, this is a very debatable subject and I try to learn from testing different methods and seeing what works. Since Google does not give us any information, testing methods is the only way one might find out what works and what does not.
Anyway, my current beliefs are as follows (this can change monthly):
I agree how competitive your target keyword phrases are, is the first concern, which is mentioned above.
Some very competitive keyword phrases to test and study are:
- Internet Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization - Also we can test methods on less competitive ( slightly less competitive) keyword phrases like:
- SEO Company
- Internet Marketing Company
- Marketing Company
Notice the last three end in Company.
If you look at and study the top 3 ranked sites in Google for Internet Marketing you can learn some very interesting lessons.
The first two have the words Internet and Internet Marketing in their domain names.
They have many links pointing to them with exact anchor text, #2 having mostly reciprocal links. #3 webuildpages has a PR8 and mostly reciprocal links.
This same analysis applies to Search Engine Optimization, SEO Company, Internet Marketing Company and Marketing Company.
Seoinc the number one ranked site for search engine optimization has over 12,000 external links pointing to their site, most of these are reciprocal links. They can gain many non reciprocal links by having their clients sites link back to them with them not returning the links, and they can and do control the anchor text. Many good SEO companies do however return the links in order to help their clients rankings. Webuildpages is a good example of this. They give links from their home page to their clients home pages.
You can see external links that point to your site by using the following in the Google search box. Just use your domain name instead of mine.
link: www.htpcompany.com -site:www.htpcompany.com
This is useful because your external links and your backward links (from the Google toolbar are different)
Clearly Google as access to both. Furthermore both seem to have impact on rankings.
HTPcompany.com is #1 for SEO Company, Internet Marketing Company and #4 for Marketing Company. So I have some proof of what I am talking about. However I am always learning.
I think a non reciprocating link is best. The problems obtaining these types of links are multiple. E.g. It is difficult to control what anchor text people use to link to your site.
I do not think currently that links from topic related sites is that big of an issue. I also saw some write ups on this topic. I go for both topic related and non topic related link exchanges. However we create a Directory organized by Category. We our extremely selective of who we approve to be in our high traffic Directory. I do not think organizing them by category is necessary today. I do agree that if you do what is best for your sites visitors this will help increase your traffic in the long run.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Tom Forrest
Internet Marketing, Web Site Promotion, Search Engine Optimization
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I'm confused in general about some SEO stuff. I was beginning to think I understood and then someone threw a wrench into my thoughts.
We talk about the importance of keyword phrases -- is that a per-page thing or a per-site thing? I mean for example if you are submitting a site to google.com -- you submit www.yoursite.com -- now Google evidently will spider that whole site when doing searches, is that correct? Then if your whole 10-page site was dedicated to middle-aged women, is keyword density based upon one page in that site or the whole site?
Thanks,
Mary Prowinski
Hi Mary,
The easy answer is that as far as the search engines are concerned, every page of your site has its own unique keyword phrases based upon the information it provides. This means that when a search engine is determining which page in its database is relevant to the search query at hand, it's looking for the best, most relevant *page* -- not *site*.
For many years, there was a lot of talk in the search engine optimization world about themes and theming. The belief was that if an entire site was focused on one particular theme (or set of keyword phrases), its pages would have a greater likelihood of ranking highly for the keywords in its theme than other pages that weren't part of a tightly focused site. I for one never put much stock in that theory. Most sites by their very nature are focused to a certain extent on one major subject, but even if one wasn't, it never seems to hurt its search engine rankings.
For instance, for years I hosted a site in a separate directory of my old webwhiz.net domain that was selling screen enclosures. The rest of my site was about search engine optimization (and in the old days, Web design). Yet, the screen enclosure pages ranked fine for their keyword phrases, and the rest of my pages ranked fine for their keyword phrases. So I wouldn't worry about any off-topic pages on your site "breaking your theme" and hurting your rankings or anything like that. It shouldn't be a problem at all.
Current Internet marketing methodologies and best practices, involves thinking about having potential new clients viewing your web site, from the time you choose your domain name until you have many rich content web pages, and you are implementing programs to increase how many other web sites link to your web site.
It is also very important for your selected Internet Marketing Company to have keyword referral tracking and web metrics in order to properly monitor your results. We track visitors from search engines and paid Internet advertising. That way you know what campaigns are successful and which Internet marketing campaigns have the best return on investment (ROI).
It is also very important for your selected search engine optimization company to have keyword referral tracking and web metrics in order to properly monitor your results. We track visitors from search engines and paid Internet advertising. That way you know what campaigns are successful and which Internet marketing campaigns have the best return on investment (ROI).
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Click here to return to Part 1
Case studies and specific real world details given in part 2.
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