Archive for December, 2008

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SEO Tips and Tricks: The importance of a sitemap and submitting it to search engines

Monday, December 8th, 2008

Let’s start with a small exercise. Pick up any random term and search for it on the internet. Now when the search results come up, visit the top 10 websites on the page and see if you can find something in common. Most people will look for similarity in design and colors or images. Try and look beyond the obvious if you can. It isn’t that easy to find or locate but it is one of the most powerful tools that will help you get listed on the first few search results pages. Yes, I am talking about the sitemap. It might be hidden amidst banners and links and text and flash. It might be right at the bottom of the page or it might be right at the top but it surely will be present on each and every website on the first search results page. What is it about the sitemap that makes it so powerful? Does it mean that a website without a sitemap will never get indexed? 

What a sitemap is all about 

An XML sitemap is a guide for search engines. It tells the search engines about each URL in your website and when it has been last updated. This gives the search engine robots a pretty good idea about how frequently a page is updated and how frequently, they should be scanning it. It is almost like helping the search engines with a more precise and intelligent approach towards scanning your website. 

Recent developments 

In November 2006, the three top search engines (MSN, Yahoo! and Google) joined forces to create and support a new industry standard for website sitemaps. This version is called sitemaps 0.90. Any webmaster, who wishes that his website be indexed frequently by all major search engines, must follow the protocols as per sitemap 0.90. 

How to create a sitemap 

This isn’t very difficult. All web hosting providers have a section in their user control panel which allows you to create an XML sitemap. If you have any doubts about it, then you can always get in touch with your hosting provider. Other than this, there are tools on the internet which let you create a sitemap for free. Xml-sitemaps.com is one such website with a wonderful utility that creates a sitemap in as less as one minute. There are other tools as well on the same website which will help you with sitemaps. 

Submitting to search engines 

Each search engine has a different portal for webmasters willing to submit a sitemap. I have covered Google in this article. The others also follow a very similar methodology. Firstly, you need to have an account with Google. In case you do not have it, I recommend that you sign up for one. It hardly takes a couple of minutes but it gives you access to a huge load of webmaster tools that will prove to be crucial in the long run. 

Once you have an account with Google, log in to your account. Then click on a link called webmaster tools on the main account page. The rest is pretty self explanatory. One important point that needs mention is that Google will first ask you to verify that you are the rightful owner of the website that you have submitted to it. This can be done by adding a Meta tag that Google will give you or adding an HTML page to your website. Once again the process is very easy and should hardly take a few minutes of your time. 

Other than submitting your sitemap, you can also use the webmaster diagnostic tools to learn about any potential problems with your website. 

Good luck!

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Submitting your site to Google

Monday, December 8th, 2008

A lot of people feel that submitting a website to Google is a specialized task that requires the hands and tools of an expert. If you are one of them, then you are misinformed. If you have acquired this information from a business or a company on the internet, then maybe it has something to sell to you. Maybe, something on the lines of a link submission service or an SEO package. Now here’s the deal. Submitting your website to Google is as easy as uploading a file to an online server. (You will know what I mean if you have ever used an online file hosting service like Rapid Share). Sounds easy? Is easier. Another huge percentage of webmasters are confused about the right time to submit a website to Google. 90% wait till the website is developed and up and running before submitting it to Google and this delays the indexing of the website by almost 5 to 6 months. The remaining 10% are the companies we see on top in the search results pages. How can this be possible? Read on to find more. 

Google Submission FAQs 

I have created a set of FAQs related to website submission. Though the focus is on Google, which according to me is the biggest and the best search engine out there, I have also mentioned some other websites which are equally good and worth a glance. 

Q. When do you submit a website to Google?

R. The right time to submit a website to Google is the minute you register a domain. This should be done irrespective of the content, the hosting, the future business plan etc. “Hey, I haven’t even bought a hosting plan yet”. So what? Do not wait. The reason behind this is that a website always takes time to get indexed in Google. In ordinary circumstances, you can expect it to get indexed in about 10 to 12 weeks time (The time may differ). Add another 6 months for your website to start getting ranked based on the kind of SEO strategy you have chosen. Now that’s almost 9 months we are talking about. If you submit your domain to Google, the minute you register it, then you can utilize these 9 months to get the business plan in order, execute it, create a well designed website, write the content for it and start online marketing and search engine optimization. Besides all these factors, you have the Google Sandbox to counter. 

Q. What is the Google Sandbox?

R. A few years ago, some webmasters noticed that their websites were not getting ranked in Google despite them using the best SEO strategies. Almost everything about the website and the SEO strategy was right. But the website would not get indexed in Google. After much research and speculation, they came to the conclusion that Google had made some modifications to their search algorithms and introduced a set of filters called Google Filters. The Google Sandbox is one of these filters. Each Google filter has a distinct function. The function of the sandbox is to withhold the indexing and the ranking of a new website until Google determines its credibility. So every new website that is submitted to Google gets sandboxed for a certain period of time. 

Q. How do I submit my website to Google? Should I hire paid services?

R. Do not spend money out of your pocket for things that you can do on your own. All that you have to do is visit this URL: 

http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html 

You will then be asked to describe your website or domain name in a few words. Think of a few words that best describes your future business plan and click on submit. 

Q. Will this guarantee that my website will be indexed and I will get high rankings in search engines?

R. Unfortunately, the answer is no. This is only an inclusion into the Google directory. It means that the Google spiders or robots which scan new websites every now and then will scan your website on their next outing on the World Wide Web. Everything from there on, including your position in search results pages depends on the website design, the kind of content on the website, the quality of back links and your online marketing strategies. 

Q. Do I have to submit to other search engines? If so, which are they?

R. Google itself is such a gargantuan search engine that almost 65% of web users use it to find what they want. Also it is firmly believed that once Google indexes your site, the rest will follow automatically. It’s follow the leader. About 25% use 10 other search engines. This means that these 11 search engines cover almost 90% of traffic on the web. Now that’s a lot of traffic. I am sure it will suffice for your business needs. Here is a list of the remaining 10 search engines. 

  1. Yahoo
  2. MSN
  3. Alta Vista
  4. Netscape
  5. Fast / All the Web
  6. Ask Jeeves / Teoma
  7. Hotbot
  8. Lycos
  9. AOL
  10. Look Smart 

Now, let me also add that some of these search engines overlap in their submissions. For example, submission to Alta vista is covered by Yahoo submissions and submission to Netscape is covered by Google and so on. Also a few search engines offer separate free as well as paid submission services.

 

I hope I have helped you to clear off a lot of doubts regarding submission to search engines. Maybe I helped you save a dollar or two. If you want to learn more about SEO, Google and related subjects, then browse through my articles below.

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4 MUST WIN SEO strategies

Monday, December 8th, 2008

If you have recently jumped on to the internet to further expand your brand name, then chances are that you will be bombarded with offers from SEO companies that offer you instant results with SEO. “Reach number 1 position on Google in 7 days”, “Get 10000 back links to your website”, “Climb up the Google ladder” etc are some of the names used by these companies. But do yourself a favor and stay away from such companies. For all that you know, your website might end up being penalized by search engines and you will be left in the doldrums for years trying to undo your mistakes. Here are 4 completely ethical and white hat SEO strategies that will place you in a must win situation. These are ideal for any new webmaster or company CEO looking to hire SEO experts online.

Slow and steady wins the race

Rome wasn’t built in a day. I am sure the same stands true for your company. You must have spent years trying to establish a company that is based on strong work principles and ethics. So why should you opt for a shortcut when you reach the biggest global marketplace? Set yourself a realistic time frame for SEO. White hat or ethical SEO strategies might take time. It might be 3 months, 6 months or even a year. Keep in mind that this is but a small time if you look at long term goals and rewards that will follow. So the first step is to hire an SEO company that has a good reputation and loads of expertise in white hat SEO strategies. If you plan to do it yourself, then go slow.

Use High quality informative content

Content is king. You cannot deny the importance of quality informative content. Good quality compelling content can not only increase the popularity of your website amongst web users, but also make it quite popular amongst other website owners. If you cannot write the content yourself, then hire a professional who can. I have heard people say this, ‘Nobody else knows my products like me. I am the best person to write about it.’ There is no denying the fact that you might know your products better than anyone else. But can you present it in a better way than anyone else? Do you have a flair for writing? Can you project it in the right way? Doing justice to your brand and making it stand out from amongst a million other websites is a tall order and it’s not something that everyone can do. Keyword research is a very important part of SEO. Do you know how and where to use keywords on the webpage?

Value each and every link

Creating back links is one of the most important parts of any SEO campaign. It is crucial for search engine visibility. It is easy to get carried away and accept each and every incoming link that comes your way. But you have to be careful and accept only quality links from trusted websites. Your content is one way to ensure that you get good links. Other than this, you have to churn your creative juices and do a fair amount of research. Promoting your website online requires a lot of patience. Not all strategies will work.

Offsite optimization

Alright, so we have spoken about content and back links and how they affect the position of your website in search engines. There are a few other things as well like Meta tags which are of reasonable importance. But there is a separate set of strategies which is known as offsite optimization. These involve promoting your website with techniques that will give you quality inbound links as well as excellent PR. Article marketing, blogs, targeting review websites, personalized emails and employing CRM are some of these strategies.

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SEO Basics: Link Building

Monday, December 8th, 2008

After the role of content in SEO, it is now time to focus on the other equally important SEO tactics. The second most important strategy is link building. As the name suggests, link building is all about building back links to your website. More the number of links to a website, the better it is considered to be by search engines. If you are new to the concept of link building, then here are a few pointers for you to get started.

What is link building?

Every website is rated by search engines using several parameters before it is listed on the results pages. The position of a website depends on a lot of factors and the number of quality links that come into the website is one of these factors. So, as part of search engine optimization, SEO experts will create a network of back links to your website using legitimate link building methods. This will help your website achieve a much stronger position in search results pages.

Illegitimate link building methods

When link building became one of the key factors affecting the position and ranking of a website in search results pages, then some ‘smart’ websites started to offer link exchange services. As the name suggests link exchange services worked by exchanging links. Website A would link to website B in exchange for a link back to A. This method worked initially and this prompted some people to go one step ahead and start link farming. A link farm is a huge database of one way links. When you join a link farm, your website will immediately get 10000 back links causing your ranking to surge.

When link farms came into the picture, the quality of search results started to suffer. Websites that had little or no relevance to the term searched for by the users started to gain top positions in search engines, courtesy these illegitimate SEO techniques. So, search engine developers went back to the drawing board and modified their search algorithms. Link farming is now considered to be spam and any website that participates or joins a link farm is banned for three years from leading search engines. So you see, you’ll end up doing more harm than good.

Legitimate Link Building Methods

Alright, so how do you build back links using legitimate techniques? There are many ways to do it. But they all lead you back to the same old tried and tested method.

  1. Build a quality website: There is no denying the fact that quality always helps. If you have a superbly designed website or have the best content in the website, then other webmasters will automatically link to your website.
  2. Article Marketing: Most people undermine the effectiveness of Article marketing. But for me, it is the most powerful form of free internet marketing. You write articles or get them written by a content writer and then distribute it over the internet. Everybody needs quality content on their website and when they get it for free, they will never hesitate to give you a link back to your website. Do ensure that the resource box at the end of the article contains a link back to your website.
  3. Forums: Once again, you can do this yourself with a fair amount of ease or hire a professional who can do it for you. Online forums are like a professional beehive seeming with contacts. All that you have to do is start interacting with people. So how do you build the links? Well, the forum board will let you create your own signature which will show up at the bottom of every post that you make. This signature can contain a coupe of lines about you or your business and a link to your website. Start making quality posts and you will have quality links building up.
  4. Blog: If you don’t know what a blog is, then you have probably woken up after a decade in suspended animation or were away hibernating in a cave. Nevertheless, a blog is one of the best ways to build back links. Keep updating the blog frequently and you will have a network of links in some time.

The key is to build quality links from quality websites. Remember, the link popularity of the website that is linking to your website also matters. So accept incoming links only from quality websites that will help you.

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SEO Basics: Why SEO?

Monday, December 8th, 2008

I have tried to explain this in extremely simple language from a layman’s perspective. Now that you know what SEO is all about, it’s time to know the importance of content in SEO. SEO techniques involve using targeted keywords in the content, restructuring the website to make it more search engine friendly, building back links, and using quality internet marketing techniques to get a steady flow of traffic to your website. Now, first and foremost comes the content. I am sure you have heard the phrase, ‘Content is king’. Here’s why it is one of the truest statements that you would have ever heard. 

It’s all about keywords 

Picture this. Mr. White who lives in Staten Island, New York wants to throw a party for his 8 year old son. He plans to hire an event management company for the party. A friend of his suggests to him to look up online. So he logs on to Google and searches for ‘Event Management Companies’. The search engine instantly pulls up a huge list of websites. But wait, most of these are irrelevant. Some of the companies are located in places as far as China. That’s not what he was looking for. So he refines the search and searches for ‘Event management, Staten Island’ and Bingo. He gets a list of event companies in Staten Island offering complete event management services. You see, a change in keyword brought about a huge change in the kind of search results that he got. This is what SEO content can do. The websites that Mr. White got in the second search attempt have targeted SEO keywords like ‘Event Management Staten Island’, ‘Staten Island event services’ and so on and so forth. 

While using targeted keywords can bring about a huge change in the search results, the content writer has to be extremely careful while using it. There is a very thin line between using and abusing keywords. Keyword stuffing is considered to be spam and many search engines have a zero tolerance policy against keyword spamming. So the onus is on the content writer to create an informative write up for the website, which showcases the myriad services on offer. Hidden within this write-up will be the keywords that will bring traffic. 

The content will be written for web users but with search engines in mind. Simple, isn’t it?

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