Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

Page rank is one of the most revolutionary and unique concepts, that was developed by Google co-founder Larry Page. Larry Page wanted to develop a system where he could assign various pages, individual ranking and importance. The system he came up with then, is today called the page rank of a web page, every single web page indexed by Google today has a page rank assigned to it.

All pages by default have an initial page rank of zero, based on the overall rank of the site and the page rank of the pages linking to a page, the page rank is then calculated. Say for example a website with an existing page rank of 7 adds a new page, the page will not only be quickly assessed by Google it will also almost immediately pick up a page rank. A high rank site’s new pages get assigned a page rank faster when compared to a site with a lower page rank. Another thing to remember that although Google might assign page rank 4 to two sites, there is a massive difference between a low page rank 4 and a high page rank 4.

Page rank calculation of newer sites takes even longer, a new site with no previous history with any search engine, will first of all have a page rank of zero from the day it is uploaded, Google has actually placed a system that is popularly called the ’sandbox’; the sandbox is basically a system that actually keeps all new sites, and additions to existing sites in a holding area. This means that for a given period of time no page rank calculation takes place. The sandbox system has been designed to ensure that sites do not misuse link building by actually creating a thousand temporary links overnight, thereby actually getting ridiculously high page ranks which are lost by the next calculation (which is usually a few months).

So in essence what the sandbox does it actually waits to check to see if all the links coming into a site or page are genuine and permanent. Once the waiting period is over, Google calculates the page rank for the site or page and then uploads it onto its server. The other factors like keyword density, search engine optimization then come into play. The thing to remember is that page rank is an exclusively Google phenomenon and in no way determines the popularity of a website on any other search engine (Unless the search engine is using Google’s results).

The most important thing to remember while carrying out search engine optimization is to have a plan, taking an ‘as it happens’ approach to search engine optimization will not only be a risky exploit, but one that makes it impossible for you to manage all the different aspects of SEO. Below is a basic check-list that you should keep in mind before you finish your optimization.

a) Titles, meta tags and various elements

The initial step after isolation of keywords is to make sure your website is correctly formatted and that all the proper elements like H1, H2 etc have been incorporated into each web page on the website. In addition also take care that all images are properly tagged with alt property of the IMG tag. Write out proper meta tags and titles (read the entry on meta tags and various tags for further details).

b) Content

Make sure that all content on the site is well written, is free from typos and if possible has been optimized with the keywords that you are targeting. There should be a balance between the relevance of the content and the keyword density. Especially since LSI, content has become even more important (Read the blog entry on LSI for further details)

c) Links

Categorise the links on your web pages as essential and non essential, the non essential links should ideally have the nofollow property inserted into the <a href=>, this ensures that the page rank of your website is not lowered. There should be an even distribution of links all over the website.

d) Site map

Ignore the site map at your peril, a site map not only helps in indexing of all your web pages by search engines, but also helps in even distribution of links across the site, a well made site map is essential for any search engine optimization effort.

e) Link Building

The link building process of search engine optimization is vital to the success of any project, there is already a detailed entry on link building on this site, in addition you should also read the blog entry on LSI. All in all, the most vital thing to remember is to keep a realistic approach to link building and not get carried away.

The check-list above is just the bare essentials of search engine optimization, depending on the type of site being optimized and the overall objective, the check-list will vary, however rest assured the basics of the entire process will essentially remain the same.

A HTML page is basically a collection of various tags, these tags not only tell a browser how to interpret and display text between tags, but these tags are also used by search engines in various ways. Below is a description of some of the various tags that are vital for any search engine optimization effort.

a) Title tag – The primary tag that is read by any search engine, the title of any web page is essentially a way for any web page to inform search engines of the contents that follow. The contents of the title tag are usually a composite of the keywords that are being targeted. This does not imply that a title tag should be littered with keywords and be hundreds of words long, such a mistake will probably result in Google ignoring your website all together.

b) Meta tags- There is already a detailed discussion of the various meta tags in a previous blog entry, there importance has gone down over a period of time, but ignore these tags at your own peril.

c)<a href> or the link tag- HTML and search engines calculate the number of incoming and outgoing links based on the number of these tags in a page, the more sites that have this tag pointing to your page the better your page rank and the converse also applies, too many links going out from your page also effect your ranking. The smartest thing to do is to regulate the number of irrelevant links going out from you page, by applying a simple rel=”nofollow” you can actually direct a search engine to ignore the outgoing link and improve your page’s overall ranking.

d)<img alt=> or alternate text – The img tag is used for inserting images into a web page, the alt section is called the alternate text of an image, search engines use this text to catalogue not only the images on your site, but also to properly categorise the web page based on the alt text, occasionally high page rank pages, actually come up for keywords based on the alt text in images!

e) <H1> <b> or formatting elements – These tags instruct the HTML interpreter to display the text in bold and larger text, search engine too lay more importance to H1 text. This however does not mean that making the entire contents of a web page header will make chances of ranking better. Same applies for the bold or other formatting tags.

There are numerous tags that contribute to the search engine ranking of a web page, these tags are well known and used by search engine optimization experts to improve the search engine ranking of websites.

A blog is defined as ‘A shared on-line journal where people can post daily entries about their personal experiences and hobbies’. Blog are primarily a place where people can sequentially offer there opinions on a plethora of topics. Topics that range from sports to fashion, a fact that makes blogs ideal for optimizers, who are looking for ways to increase the back links and popularity of there websites.

Most blogs today allow free exchange of links and information, this has lead to many SEO experts cleverly placing links to there sites, disguising them as genuine blog entries or better still making them a part of a thread of questions. There are various sites that have started safe guarding their blogs from such ’spamming’. This has made utilizing blogs for SEO purposes a challenging proposition. However this in no way means, that blogs cannot be utilized to effectively increase the page rank and the popularity of a website.

Blogs sites are just one of the many avenues that have been recently exploited by search engine optimizers, in addition to blogs there are also other techniques like social bookmarking, creative article writing, these techniques are in essence a off shoot of using blog entries smartly. Recent developments have also added to the overall challenge of using blog sites, LSI has made it essential for search engine optimizers to properly research and isolate, blogs that are either related to the website being optimized or at least a topic that is related. Below is a short list of things to remember while using blogs to improve a sites popularity

a) Try to isolate credible blogs and blogs that are relevant to your site, a fashion blog linking to a children’s cartoon site, will not make much of an impact.

b) Do not spam a blog site, with dozens of links, instead look for a relevant topic that relates to your site.

c) Be smart and create multiple blog users, this does not mean that you create a new user for every site you optimize but spread the links across multiple users, a single user registering a thousand links will be recognized as a spammer instantly

The above are just a few things to keep in mind when you are using blogs to optimize your site, but the crux of the matter remains that unless you are an expert you might just end up as a spammer, or worst still a person who ends up achieving nothing for the optimized site in terms of links.

The page rank and the popularity of any website is determined by a pivotal factor, the number of links it is receiving from external websites. Google and so many other search engines today have a page ranking systems that, like Google’s complex algorithms keeps evolving with time. Earlier any simple link that your website could muster up contributed to the page rank of your website, not any more. Today Google has evolved its page ranking system to a level where, not only does the pedigree of the website that is linking to you count but, in addition the site should be relevant to your website.

To put it more simply a website that is selling car parts, having numerous links from a flower vendor will surmount to nothing. Major search engines have woken up to the ever increasing misuse of spam linking, simply paying high page rank sites to put up a link to any site is no longer a viable SEO tactic. The need has come for optimizers to carefully isolate and get back links from ‘relevant’ sites.

There are however a few common web sites one can look to for improving the page rank and standing of a page. The first in the list is Web Directories, older web directories have already established themselves with search engines, and have numerous categories that one can register one’s site with. Registering with specialized directories is an even better option, since these directories have already established themselves in a niche market, links from these directories will be a much faster way of increasing your back links.

The second way of increasing back links, is to utilise the services of social networking sites, you can simply join a social networking site, isolate the community that suits you and then insert links. This method however is yet to prove an effective way of link building and there are various myths about this in the market, the effectiveness of this method is open to debate.

The third and smartest way of link building is by actually writing out custom press releases and articles, articles that actually are related to your site but do not directly market your site. Such articles are either indexed by numerous news sites, or are simply referenced in high page rank sites.

The fourth method is to actually exchange links with non competing sites, the link exchange process has helped many sites actually move up the ranking ladder. If not link exchange then actually exchanging advertising banners also helps.

To sum it up, link building is an essential search engine optimization activity that, all though is very laborious and time consuming has to be done effectively to increase a site’s ranking.

 Subscribe in a reader

• Email Subscription by Feedburner