by jasonajadmin | Jul 8, 2015 | Search Engine Optimization
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We have compiled a list of SEO tips obtained from Google’s website. This is NOT original material. This is simply a list of tools that any website owner can implement to help promote a business website.
[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center” down=”30″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” type=”grid” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column width=”3/4″][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.”][icon_list_item icon=”fa-tags” icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a6d9″ title=”Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.”][vc_separator type=”transparent” position=”center” down=”25″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
by jasonajadmin | Jul 8, 2015 | Search Engine Optimization
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Search Engine Optimization
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Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.
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Google Basics
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When you sit down at your computer and do a Google search, you’re almost instantly presented with a list of results from all over the web. How does Google find web pages matching your query, and determine the order of search results?
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In the simplest terms, you could think of searching the web as looking in a very large book with an impressive index telling you exactly where everything is located. When you perform a Google search, their programs check their index to determine the most relevant search results to be returned (“served”) to you.
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The three key processes in delivering search results to you are:
Crawling: Does Google know about your site? Can we find it?
Indexing: Can Google index your site?
Serving: Does the site have good and useful content that is relevant to the user’s search?
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Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and updated pages to be added to the Google index.
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Google uses a huge set of computers to fetch (or “crawl”) billions of pages on the web. The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider). Googlebot uses an algorithmic process: computer programs determine which sites to crawl, how often, and how many pages to fetch from each site.
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Google’s crawl process begins with a list of web page URLs, generated from previous crawl processes, and augmented with Sitemap data provided by webmasters. As Googlebot visits each of these websites it detects links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. New sites, changes to existing sites, and dead links are noted and used to update the Google index.
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Google doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, and they keep the search side of our business separate from their revenue-generating AdWords service.
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Googlebot processes each of the pages it crawls in order to compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page. In addition, they process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes.
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When a user enters a query (enters search words), their machines search the index for matching pages and return the results they believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. PageRank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site’s PageRank. Not all links are equal: Google works hard to improve the user experience by identifying spam links and other practices that negatively impact search results. The best types of links are those that are given based on the quality of your content.
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In order for your site to rank well in search results pages, it’s important to make sure that Google can crawl and index your site correctly.
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No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
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Deciding to invest in SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][icon_list_item icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a7da” title=”Review of your site content or structure” title_size=”16″ icon=”fa-check”][icon_list_item icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a7da” title=”Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript” title_size=”16″ icon=”fa-check”][icon_list_item icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a7da” title=”Content development” title_size=”16″ icon=”fa-check”][icon_list_item icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a7da” title=”Management of online business development campaigns” title_size=”16″ icon=”fa-check”][icon_list_item icon_type=”transparent” icon_color=”#02a7da” title=”Keyword research” title_size=”16″ icon=”fa-check”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” padding_top=”25″][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]
While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate Google’s guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site’s presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from their index.
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Here are some things to consider:
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][icon_text box_type=”normal” icon=”fa-envelope” icon_type=”square” icon_position=”left” icon_size=”fa-lg” use_custom_icon_size=”no” icon_animation=”q_icon_animation” title=”Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. ” title_tag=”h6″ text_color=”#222222″ text=”Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night“ diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][icon_text box_type=”normal” icon=”fa-google” icon_type=”square” icon_position=”left” icon_size=”fa-lg” use_custom_icon_size=”no” icon_animation=”q_icon_animation” title=”No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. ” title_tag=”h6″ text_color=”#222222″ text=”Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship“ with Google, or advertise a “priority submit“ to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through Google’s “Add URL“ page or by submitting a Sitemap.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][icon_text box_type=”normal” icon=”fa-user-md” icon_type=”square” icon_position=”left” icon_size=”fa-lg” use_custom_icon_size=”no” icon_animation=”q_icon_animation” title=”Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do. ” title_tag=”h6″ text_color=”#222222″ text=”Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway“ domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help“ you.”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][icon_text box_type=”normal” icon=”fa-money” icon_type=”square” icon_position=”left” icon_size=”fa-lg” use_custom_icon_size=”no” icon_animation=”q_icon_animation” title=”Be sure to understand where the money goes. ” title_tag=”h6″ text_color=”#222222″ text=”While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they “control“ other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn’t work with Google because their advertising is clearly labeled and separated from their search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you’re considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”3/4″][icon_text box_type=”normal” icon=”fa-trophy” icon_type=”square” icon_position=”left” icon_size=”fa-lg” use_custom_icon_size=”no” icon_animation=”q_icon_animation” title=”What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter? ” title_tag=”h6″ text_color=”#222222″ text=”One common scam is the creation of “shadow“ domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client’s behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor’s domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
