Understanding Web-Site Optimization
Posted by: myonespirit on: June 26, 2009
Web-site optimization is all about creating a site that is discoverable by search engines and search directories. It sound simple enough, but there are many aspects of site optimization to consider, and not all of them are about the keywords, links, or HTML tagging of your site.
Does hosting matter?
That question comes up frequently when a company or individual is designing a web site. Does it matter who hosts your site? The answer is no, but that’s not to say that domain hosting is unimportant. Elements of the hosting have a major impact on how your site ranks in search results. One of the biggest issues that you’ll face with domain hosting is the location of your hosting company. If you’re in the United States and you purchase a domain that is hosted on a server in England,
your search engine rankings will suffer. Geographically, search engine crawlers will read your site as being contradictory to your location. Because many search engines serve up results with some element of geographical location included, this contradiction could be enough to affect your ranking.
The length of time for which you register your domain name could also affect your search engine ranking. Many hackers use throw away domains, or domain names that are registered for no more than a year, because they usually don’t even get to use the domain for a full year before they are shutdown. For this reason some search engines have implemented ranking criteria that give priority to domains registered for longer periods. A longer registration also shows a commitment to maintaining the web site.
Before You Build Your Site
Posted by: myonespirit on: June 26, 2009
One of the most common misconceptions about SEO is that it should be implemented after a web site has been built. It can be, but it’s much harder. A better option is to consider SEO even before you begin to build your web site, if that’s at all possible. It may not be. But if that’s the case, you can still implement SEO strategies in the design of your site; it will just require a lot more work than building it in at the beginning. Know your target Before you even start contemplating how to build your web site, you should know in what types of search engines it’s most important for your site to be ranked.
Search engines are divided into several types, beyond the primary, secondary, and targeted search engines that you learned about in Chapter 2. In addition, search engine types are determined by how information is entered into the index or catalog that’s used to return search results. The three types of search engines are:
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SEO Strategies
Posted by: myonespirit on: June 26, 2009
SEO is hard work. It takes much effort to optimize just the right elements of your web site so search engines will not only find you, but will also index your site so that it appears high in search query results. And all of that effort must be attended to by you. There are currently no tools that will put all of the elements of SEO in place for you.
Instead, you have to build your web site with SEO in mind, choose all the right keywords, and use them in the right places and balance on your site, determine if pay-per-click and paid inclusion programs are for you, use the right meta tags in the right places, create great content, and add all the right links.
Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?
It is. But don’t let the amount of work overwhelm you. Consistent effort and the strategies included in this part of the book will have
you working toward your SEO goals in no time. Each of the chapters in this section contains an explanation of how these elements affect SEO, and how you can create and implement strategies to help you leverage that element to reach your SEO goals.
Achieving Organic SEO Part II
Posted by: myonespirit on: June 26, 2009
Site interactivity
When the Internet first came into being, web sites were all about disclosing information. The only interaction between a web site and a user was the reading the user did while on the site. Today, reading is still important. Users search for web sites to learn more about products, services, or topics.
However, there’s much more to web sites today than just text on a screen. We now live in the Interactive Age. Most of us want to interact with the web sites we’re visiting. That interaction might take the form of a poll, the ability to comment on a blog post, the downloading of a file, or even a game that relates to the site content. No matter what the type of interaction, users expect it, and search crawlers look for it.
Site interactivity is essential to achieving a high SEO ranking. Sure, you can garner a high ranking without interaction, bit it won’t happen nearly as fast, and the ranking will likely be lower than that of a site that has some form of interaction with the user. Why is interaction so important? Simple. If you can influence a user to interact with your site, you have more of a chance of gaining a goal conversion. Goal conversions are the completion of some form of activity designed to gather further information about your user. A goal conversion can be something as simple as enticing users to sign up for a newsletter, or it can be more specific, like persuading them to make purchases.
