January 5, 2006
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In Today's Issue:
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>> Welcome From Your Publisher
>> Website Optimization - A SEO Specialist Reveals All
By Robert Fuess
>> Subscription Info
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Welcome From Your Publisher...
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Happy New Year Everyone. This is the first issue of MIBW for
2006, I still can't believe I have been publishing since 2001.
I look back at what has changed and while there are new trends
coming in, a lot of things are still the same. Quality over
junk still reins and scams are becoming more recognizable these
days but we have more ways to weed them out as well.
One thing that I am doing this week before anything else is to
clean out my inbox. I don't know about you but I get thousands
of emails a day. With over 5 domains and counting, and many
different email addresses for each domain, there are tons of
emails coming in and most of it is junk. I don't get a chance to
clean it all out every day so it piles up.
I also delete a lot of mail that I have opened up. I still have
mail on my pc from years ago. I always keep copies of my
receipts from Paypal, Clickbank, etc. and I keep any
correspondence from my clients, but when you look at all the
emails you received from friends or other important emails,
they add up and it is time to remove the clutter. If you get
depressed when you open up your email client, then you know it
is time to clean it out.
Here are some quick tips that you can use to clear the clutter
out.
1. Create filters for your emails so all your important emails
can go into one folder instead of everywhere else.
2.. Print out important emails. Receipts, and other important
emails used for tax purposes or general business records, just
print them out. If your pc crashes, then you wont have access
to it anyway, so buy some ink and start printing. If you can't
print them all, then save them to a CD for referencing later.
I will print more tips on email clean up and cleaning up your
hard drive in next Tuesdays' issue. Stay tuned.
There is a great article today on search engine optimization
which we all need and is essential to all of us who have our
own website or are thinking of starting one. The remaining
article has been posted on the blog so if you want to add some
comments, register online and start talking.
I will be back tomorrow for the Classified issue.
Thanks again everyone and see you tomorrow.
Donesia Muhammad
http://DonesiaMuhammad.com
http://EzineAdHelper.com
http://MyIBizWeekly.com
http://ReprintedArticles.com
http://KDMPublishing.com
Questions or Comments
mailto:owner@myibizweekly.com?subject=mibwfeedback
* Please HELP with long-term relief for the survivors of the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Thanks!
http://www.katrina-long-term-relief.com
===================
Website Optimization - A SEO Specialist Reveals All
===================
Copyright © 2005 Robert Fuess
Spiderweb Logic
http://www.SpiderwebLogic.com
Website optimization is the first step in promoting your website.
Those with foresight and deeper pockets will have a SEO-savvy
webmaster (such as myself) build the website that is optimized from
the start. Otherwise, a website may need a SEO-facelift later to
help it be digestible to the search engines - and to make it obvious
to the search engines that the keywords you are trying to be found
under are truly relevant to your website. Like any specialty,
performing website optimization involves skills, special tools, and
a willingness to keep up with current changes in the market.
Unfortunately, hiring an SEO expert can be quite expensive. For
those who want to do it themselves, here are the steps.
BOOKMARK THESE TOOLS! YOU WILL need them!
The first step in website optimization is to make sure you have
well-formatted HTML. I would encourage you to use the following tool
to check this:
validator.w3.org/ Do your best to get your website as close to
conformance as possible.
If you use CSS, then use a CSS validator at
jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html There is
rarely an excuse for not having it validate here.
If you follow most of the suggestions for having valid HTML code
your web pages will be more digestible for the search engines, as
well as being much more cross-browser compliant. You should also do
this after any significant edit of the web page - to ensure that it
is still compliant.
The second step in website optimization is to work on the Meta
tags and the title tag for each page in your site. These are in
the header of your web page document and need to be tailored to
attract users who type in one of a select group of keywords.
If you need a tool to help generate these, use this meta tag
generator tool here
(www.spiderweblogic.com/HTML-Meta-Tag-Generator.aspx)
that I built.
The Title Tag:
The title tag is, of the three, the most important for the major
search engines. Don’t make this too long - normally no more than 6
words. But have your most important keywords here. Some SEO
specialists advise that even the order of the text here is
significant. They suggest that if you place your company name in the
title, that it should be placed last so the other keywords are being
considered with greater weight.
The Meta-Keywords Tag:
This is now of lesser importance than before, due to abuse by
webmasters to achieve high rankings. However, it is still
important and is required by many of the smaller search engines.
Make sure that you don’t repeat any keyword or keyword phrase
more than three times. That would be considered Spam (bad SEO
tactics) by the search engines. Remember, your visitors will see the
title of the web page. Make it useful to them as well.
The Meta-Description Tag:
This is of higher importance than the keywords tag. Several
search engines use it when they show your listing. It needs to
encourage your potential visitors to visit your website. Of
course, having keywords in here is important. But keep the
primary purpose in mind as you write it. Here too, you should
make sure that you don’t repeat any keyword or keyword phrase
more than three times.
Each page in your website needs its own tailored title, meta-
description, and meta-keywords tag. These need to be focused on
the keywords you are trying for. (These are the words or phrases you
want to be found at when people are doing searches.) These shouldn’t
normally be the same on every page. They should be customized to the
content that is on that page. You should also keep your visitors in
mind as you write them.
The third step is to work on your content - especially on your
home page. Ideally you would have between 800 - 1200 words of
text. It should have your most important keywords at the top,
middle and the bottom of the text. If possible, use an “h1″ tag
at the top for your title - and have your most important keyword
imbedded in it. Also, have some of your keywords in a sentence or
phrase that is bolded. Keep it natural for your visitors to read. If
it doesn’t look natural, you will loose any visitors you have
attracted.
The fourth step in website optimization is to edit your links and
your images to make full use of the “title” and “alt” attributes.
Text links can have a “title” attribute. The content is to more
fully describe your link. When you put your mouse over the link, the
content of the “title” attribute is displayed. I would encourage you
to tailor the description so that it contains at least one of your
keywords - but keep it accurate - that it really does describe the
link. It must make sense to the common user.
Images HTML tags can have an “alt” attribute. It is used to
describe an image when you put a mouse over it. It is also used
for different devices for seeing impaired. Also, it is used when the
user decides not to show images with the web site. They will see
this text instead. (It is the “Alternate Text” for the image.) Try
to incorporate some keywords here too - but keep with the spirit of
being the “alternate text” for the image.
If you are using tables, you may even include a table “summary”
attribute. The purpose of this attribute is to assist for those with
disabilities to understand the contents and structure of a table.
Keep all summary comments within that purpose - and add keywords
only where appropriate. Note that these summary attributes may cause
your web page validator to spit up an error
- but this is newer item that is encouraged.
The fifth step is to have a good menu system or a site map.
Search engines follow links to find the different pages in your
site. If your navigation is one of those JavaScript drop-down
menus or Flash menus, the search engines may not find all of
your pages unless you have an alternative non-JavaScript link
path that they can follow. If you use the fancy JavaScript
links, you should have a hard link to a site map on every page.
The site map should have a real non-JavaScript list of links
that the search engines can follow to map out your whole site.
As a standard policy I tend to avoid the JavaScript links in
the menus.
OPTIONAL:
If you haven’t chosen a domain name yet, you may strongly
consider having your top keyword phrase in the domain name,
with the words separated by dashes. This is an excellent idea,
but not always feasible. Many companies already have a domain
name selected, or prefer to use their company name as the
domain name. This is a business decision left up to the
customer.
THINGS NOT TO DO:
Don’t create and market mirror sites though to accomplish this
trick either. Sites that are identical in content, but have a
different domain name are considered SPAM (bad/taboo) by the
search engines. They don’t appreciate such tricks, and the
ranking of both websites will suffer for it.
Also, don’t get too crazy with stuffing keywords where they
don’t belong or by repeating keywords or by having keywords in
hidden layers. Search engines don’t like that and will ban your
site.
SEO SOFTWARE TO BUY:
I have used SEO Studio to do website analysis during my
optimization. This has been an invaluable tool for analyzing
how saturated my keywords are in a particular web page. It is
reasonably priced and I have been very satisfied with the
performance. It is easy to see such things as keyword density
relevance for the whole web page. It also is helpful in showing
where the keywords are not (and can be). You will learn a lot
about website optimization just by using this tool!
NOW WHAT?
After all this “Search Engine Optimization” you need to do a
human review your website - is it natural/useful/helpful for
the human visitor? Remember, getting website traffic is only
half the game. This site needs to quickly convert them into
paying customers.
Once it is “Optimized”, then you need to let the search
engines know that you exist. Only after it is ready should you
tell them about it. But this is a subject for another article.
Do a search of different article warehouse or SEO news sources.
You will find a lot of information on this.
WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION NEWS SOURCES:
Since there are new quirks in the website optimization and
website promotion that come out all the time - some that apply
to all search engines, and some that apply to a particular one,
it is wise to keep up to date. I strongly encourage you to join
a couple of relevant mailing lists!
I really like the news sources from
Entireweb.com. If you
submit a site through them, I would encourage you to accept their
free newsletters. They have great content.
www.entireweb.com/submit_site/
Another place to get really great articles on website
optimization or promotion is
www.SiteProNews.com
They also allow you to subscribe to their articles. Do
this!
If you are serious about keeping up with your website
positioning, keep up with the news. You will find these
resources invaluable!
Robert Fuess is a veteran website designer who specializes
in making dynamic search engine optimized websites.
www.SpiderwebLogic.com |
www.SchoolAndTeacher.com
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