0 Search Engine Optimisation Pitfalls

On page factors - Is your website search engine friendly?

So you have a website but where is it on Google? Have you fallen foul of a penalty or have you overlooked one of the many common search engine optimisation pitfalls when designing your site?

Understanding what works for the search engines and what doesn't when it comes to the content on your website can have a crucial impact on the relevance and/or page rank of your pages from a SEO perspective.

Here we highlight common mistakes that could affect your ranking on Google and other search engines.

Optimising for the correct keywords - Basically 'Get real' about what keywords you feel your website can be ranked for. If you have a ten page website in a highly competitive market then ranking naturally for the major terms will be close to impossible. Use the Overture keyword tool together with the number of results on Google to find out what keywords are searched for and how many other websites are targeting them. If you are lucky then you might even find a popular keyword that not many other websites are optimised for. Alternatively a good tool for this job is Wordtracker from Rivergold Associates Ltd.

Code validation - If your html code is not valid then this could make it very difficult or even impossible for a search engine to separate your page content from your code. If the search engine cannot see your content then your page will obviously have no relevance.

Frames - Even though most, if not all, major search engines now index frames and even with the use of the NOFRAMES tag you run the risk of your pages being displayed in the search engine results out of context. As each individual page is indexed separately, it is likely that your website visitors will not see your pages within your frame and will effectively be stuck on the page they arrive at.

If you must use frames then create a 'Home' link on each of your individual content pages and point the link at your frameset index page.

JavaScript navigation - If you use JavaScript to control your website navigation then search engine spiders may have problems crawling your site. If you must use JavaScript then there are two options available to you:

Use the NOSCRIPT tag to replicate the JavaScript link in standard HTML. Replicate your JavaScript links as standard HTML links in the footer of your page.

Flash content - Currently only Google can index Macromedia Flash files, how much or how little content they see is open to debate. So until search engine technology is able to handle your .swf as standard then it would be advisable to avoid the use of these. Again if you must use Flash then offer a standard HTML alternative within NOEMBED tags.

Dynamic URLs - Although Google and Yahoo are able to crawl complicated URLs it is still advisable to keep your URLs simple and avoid the use of long query strings. Do not including session IDs in the URL as these can either create a 'spider trap' where the spider indexes the page over and over again or, at worst, your pages will not get indexed at all. If you do need to include parameters in the URL then limit them to two and the number of characters per parameter to ten or less.

The best SEO solution for dynamic URLs is to use Mod-rewrite or Multiviews on Apache.

No sitemap - A sitemap is the search engine optimisation tool of choice to ensure every page within your website is indexed by all search engines. You should link to your site map from, at least, your homepage but preferably from every page on your website. If your website contains hundreds of pages then split the sitemap into several categorised maps and link these all together. Try and keep the number of links per page on a sitemap to less than 100.

Excessive links - Excessive links on a given page (Google recommends having no more than 100) can lower its relevance and, although it does not result in a ban, this does nothing for your search engine optimisation strategy.

Be careful who you link to - As you have no control over who links to your website, incoming links will not harm your rank. However outbound links from your website to 'bad neighbourhoods' like link farms will harm your ranking.

As a rule ensure as many of your outbound links as possible link to websites that are topical to your field of business.

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0 Oh No, The SEO Company I Hired Didn't Do A Thing! What Do I Do?

As a new age of web marketers filter through the trials & tribulations of success online, it brings us to an important question, who do I believe? If you've paid attention as to how to optimize your site for online performance, you'll eventually come across what we call, bad SEO practices.

In the event that you are looking into hiring an SEO company, you are left with many decisions and concerns. I don't blame you for worrying. Many of the so called "SEO" companies are just out to get your money. Please don't take this article as an attack against SEO consultants but take it as a warning to do your due-diligence and investigate each company you contact.

Here is a small check list to ask:

- Could you show me some of your clients placements?

- What did you have to do to get them there?

- Could you give me something to read about your methods?

- Do you guarantee your placements? (oh oh look out)

If the response comes back something like this:

We don't disclose our secrets or, we cloned their information and placed it on our site to get a good ranking right away or, we simply went out to got 1000's of incoming links for them. Here's the kicker, stay away from this; we guarantee you top placements and/or placements on the 1st page etc.

These are considered tell tale signs that the SEO Company you contacted is just in it for the money and they don't truly care about your business in the future. All these practices in question may sometimes work but are breaking ethical search engine optimization rules.

Here is what an "unethical SEO "would sound like:
(created for the purposes of this illustration).

1) "we don't disclose our secrets" - There are no secrets to disclose
2) "We cloned their information" - We will get better results than you will
3) "We went out and got 1000's of links" - Good thing they weren't related to anything you do because we would actually have to spend a lot of time targeting your market instead of bringing in false traffic.
4) "We guarantee everything" - There is no such thing on the internet
Here is what an "ethical SEO" would sound like:
(created for the purposes of this illustration).

What we plan to do is to strategically target your market by optimizing your site internally to target the right key words that your potential buyers are searching for online. Also, we would like to strategically place your website link on other related websites to gain more exposure to your business with the right people in mind."

We don't care if other people are "cloning","hiding their text","linking to everyone in the world", we are here to build the right foundation, to make sure that your tree will grow for years to come."

Although we cannot guarantee anything in this business, our track record is strong and our clients are truly happy with their results, here are some references."

There is a big difference in good practices and bad ones. You can spot them right away as soon as they divert your questions elsewhere. Good SEO companies aren't afraid to answer your questions, in fact, we love to talk about search marketing & positioning and we have the proof to back up our statements.

Some would say SEO Companies are like "lawyers", they will do whatever it takes to win the battle but many of us SEO's would strongly disagree. Granted, in every working field in the world, there are bad apples out there. Unfortunately concerning web marketing, we see them world wide but our industry is about helping people grow their business. We genuinely care about your success. The more successful you are, the more success we will attract for our own business.

This information can also be used for everyone trying to perform their own SEO plans. Don't believe every practice you hear out there, in fact, try asking the professionals at "www.webproworld.com" one of the internet's most resourceful informational forums to date. Simply ask one of the professionals about the ethical/unethical methods of promoting your business, and you will get the answer you were looking for.

I hope this information helps your journey!

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0 Target Your Strategy with SEO

EO Services Delhi (e-fuzion) based on certain subject which is helpful to draw beleaguered viewers there fore they are strongly suggested to be used. Once the key words have been decided for the site one has to come up with a strategy to target those keywords across the site. Here is a primer on that. SEO Services Delhi Company (e-fuzion) uses multiple words, which are useful to attract targeted audience therefore they are strongly recommended to be used. Typically, although it is not a hard and fast rule but in theme based keyword we use general keywords in root level and use specific keywords in root level and uses specific keyword in directory level. Overall one can safely say that in keyword targeting one uses dart board strategy. Where in the smallest circle attracts your core audience and hence should have theme oriented multiple word keywords. As we move up on the theme the circle tends to get larger and the keywords tends to get simpler even though are theme based. SEO Services Delhi (e-fuzion) also helps in Domain name and URLs of directory pages is also a factor in search engine optimization as well as it helps to inform targeted audience, about the sites content. There fore, special care should be exercised in choosing a domain name. All the search engines start reading each web page with its respective domain name.

SEO Services Delhi have said that, there is a raging debate amongst the SEO community to determine the exact importance of keywords in the domain name. One camp believes that it is hugely important to have keywords in domain whereas the other maintains that brand building domain name is important than keywords incorporating one.

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0 How To Ensure The Search Engines Find Your Website

One of the most fundamental aspects of search engine optimisation (SEO) is ensuring that the pages within your website are as accessible as possible to the search engines. It's not only the homepage of a website that can be indexed, but also the internal pages within a site's structure. The internal pages of a site often contain important content such as products, services or general information, and therefore can be uniquely optimised for related terms. As a result, easy access to these pages is vital.

There are many do's and don'ts involved in ensuring all of your pages can be found by search engines. However, it is important to first establish how the search engines find and index web pages.

Search engines use "robots" (also known as "bots" or "spiders") to find content on the web for inclusion in their index. A robot is a computer programme that can follow the hyperlinks on a web page, which is known as "crawling". When a robot finds a document it includes the contents within the search engine's index, then follows the next links it can find and continues the process of crawling and indexing. With this in mind, it becomes apparent that the navigational structure of a website is important in getting as many pages as possible indexed.

When considering the navigational structure of your site, the hierarchy of content should be considered. Search engines judge what they feel to be the most important pages of a site when considering rankings and a page's position in the site structure can influence this. The homepage is generally considered the most important page of a site - it is the top level document and usually attracts the most inbound links. From here, search engine robots can normally reach pages that are within three clicks of the homepage. Therefore, your most important pages should be one click away, the next important two clicks away and so forth.

The next thing to consider is how to link the pages together. Search engine robots can only follow generic HTML href links, meaning Flash links, JavaScript links, dropdown menus and submit buttons will all be inaccessible to robots. Links with query strings that have two or more parameters are also typically ignored, so be aware of this if you run a dynamically generated website.

The best links to use from an SEO perspective are generic HTML text links, as not only can they be followed by robots but the text contained in the anchor can also be used to describe the destination page – an optimisation plus point. Image links are also acceptable but the ability to describe the destination page is diminished, as the alt attribute is not given as much ranking weight as anchor text.

The most natural way to organise content on a website is to categorise it. Break down your products, services or information into related categories and then structure this so that the most important aspects are linked to from the homepage. If you have a vast amount of information for each category then again you will want to narrow your content down further. This could involve having articles on a similar topic, different types of product for sale, or content that can be broken down geographically. Categorisation is natural optimisation – the further you break down your information the more content you can provide and the more niche key phrases there are that can be targeted.

If you are still concerned that your important pages may not get indexed, then you can consider adding a sitemap to your website. A sitemap can be best described as an index page – it is a list of links to all of the pages within a site contained on one page. If you link to a sitemap from your homepage then it gives a robot easy access to all of the pages within your site. Just remember – robots typically can't follow more than 100 links from one page, so if your site is larger than this you may want to consider spreading your sitemap across several pages.

There are many considerations to make when optimising your site for search engines, and making your pages accessible to search engine robots should be the first step of your optimisation process. Following the advice above will help you make your entire site accessible and aid you in gaining multiple rankings and extra traffic.

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0 Google's New Update - Is Google Bombing You?

As the world turns, the internet is getting stirred up by these new Google updates showing up all over the web. For the past few weeks people have been recording two GoogleBots showing up on their site stats.

While updates may be good for some, it also means "welcome to the real world" for others. If you are one to watch closely those high rankings that your website has been getting, you may want to revisit them again. Don't be shocked to see that your site has dropped off the face of the earth.

Is Google Killing Over-Optimization?

The more we take a look at what is happening out there, the more we discover that Google seems to be penalizing websites that "over optimize" their sites. If you try and insert keywords whenever you can, you are over doing it. If you add "anchor text" to all your links, you are over doing it. Anchor text is a new practice but as I've stated before, it won't last long. Most people never get to read or even see the anchor text implemented in a website. Anchor text is the "explanation" that pops-up when you put your cursor over a link.

I tested the "anchor text" theory with my site last week. I only tested one main page that I knew that Google would re-index within 48 hours. The results were very negative. As soon as the new information was indexed, the search engine results from that page dropped down dramatically. Again, I removed the anchor text from the page and the results seem to gain momentum once again.

It's not hard to come to the conclusion that with so many of us out there seeking for "google answers", we tend to implement anything we read in articles, newsletters, forums, etc... within our websites. With this in mind, it's no wonder the new update may be attacking those who try too hard to raise their positions in engines.

Is Page Ranking Dead?

As we where all trying finally to veer away from Google Page Ranking, we now see another change in our ranks, another update has hit our doorway and with it has brought new PageRank updates. Is it really an increase/decrease of pagerank? or is it just the result of the new updates taking a small affect to the pagerank technology from Google.

It actually seems as though pageranking is still in affect. Many of the newer pages built these days have been neglected from pageranking altogether. Now, we can see a small increase to newer pages and a possible increase to older ones as well. Lately before the commotion started, 99% of newer pages barely gave any signs that Google had indexed them and rewarded inbound links to them

What Does The Future Hold?

Many of you might be thinking, where do we go from here? In reality there are literally 1000's of you out there that have never gone through a Google update of this magnitude. You may feel confused, unsure, and alone. Don't worry, you are not the 1st to get hit hard. We've all felt the wrath of Google sometime or another. The best thing to do is to NOT wait until the storm settles down. No, get out there promoting your site more than you've ever done. I've always considered a hit to my websites a blessing in disguise.

Is Google's IPO Affecting Change?

Some seriously believe that since the introduction to Google's new IPO, they have had a new found reason to working harder at delivering better results and trully proving to the world that they have what it takes to be the best out there.

How is it that so many of us out there now depend on Google to perform well? What has happened to promoting online where so many of us depend solely of Google to create success for our business? Does this not seem strange to you? In our efforts to increase rank, get better placements, increase our traffic, we have let Google become our parent figure guiding us online and holding our hands.

As we move into the future, are we going to allow only a certain amount of companies to hold the keys to our future? We need to break free and look towards making new partnerships and help smaller but also deserving search engines to plow the way.

Before this update, you may have felt comfortable with your high rankings but now they are gone. It has happened to the best of us. Take this opportunity to get back up and start promoting your site like you've never done before. Don't just sit there and wonder what happened, take advantage of this "ego buster" and increase your own rank.

As for Google's future, let Google figure that out and keep your focus on your own future. Go further than you've ever gone before.

Until next update, keep it up!

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