Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

There are many misconceptions about SEO and SEOs. A lot of people think SEO and SEM is the same thing.

Well, it’s not. You can SEO without SEM, SEO can in fact be SEM, but SEM without SEO is probably going to fail. On the other hand, SEO with no attention to SEM in certain markets can be damaging.

Are you confused yet? SEO is search engine optimization. SEOs are search engine optimizers - in other words, they do SEO. SEM is search engine marketing, which some SEOs also do, and many SEMs handle exclusively.

PPC is pay per click, and is used in the advertising world to mean advertising revolving around payments made for every time people click on your ad. CPC means cost per click - which is more specific, being the actual price you pay for each click in your pay per click campaign.

You can also have cost per action, and cost per sale; it depends on your personal preferences. So, is it worth it? Should you SEO or SEM? Should you do both? How do you decide?

You just want to get traffic to your site; good solid targeted traffic that will yield high conversions. For this you need a combination of optimization and marketing techniques that included elements of each one in a comfortable setting. This will make sure you are targeting customers appropriately, and will give your website more authority.

Any SEO that guarantees automatic sales or top level search engine ranking is probably too good true. SEOs are great at finding out what makes search engine click, and they can do their best to make your site operate at full competency.

This can add to your traffic, and the rest is up to you, as you tweak pages and approaches to convert your traffic into sales. If you have done your SEO correctly, you will have good targeted traffic. Your SEM traffic will be highly motivated, checkbook in hand.

All you have to do is make sure you pick a niche that you can effectively optimize and market without huge outlay. Be broadminded and attack on many different levels as possible, and you will establish a reputation for being able to deliver the goods.

A word about that- make sure you CAN deliver on all of your promises. It is way easier to exceed expectations that to fall short… IF you are smart enough to make your customers happy, you will find that a good name is worth all of the SEOP and SEM in the world.

Have you ever wondered why Google is indexing http://yourdomain.com instead of http://www.yourdomain.com? There has already been a post that stated that Google treats variations in URL patterns as reference to different pages. For example, Google considers the above two variations as two separate pages. Therefore you are advised to use a single format in the URL pattern all through your site and also when you are placing your links in other websites so that your website will get the full benefit of linking.

You will be able to make Google index the page you want and to ignore the other versions even if there has been any inconsistencies in the reference patterns. This can be done by setting your preferred domain URL. Those who have used Google’s webmaster tools will be able to relate to this immediately. You can make use of Google’s webmaster tools by signing up for a Google account. After logging in, you will be able to set your preferred domain URL in other words you will be able to set your canonical domain. By setting the preferred domain URL you are instructing Google spiders to use the version you are suggesting in the preferred URL field for your website when they are listed in the search results.

If you happen to set your preferred URL as http://www.yourdomain.com, then Google will automatically convert your links that are specified as http://yourdomain.com to the above format in all the future crawls. The URLs will also be displayed in the format that you have set in the preferred URL column. However, before you can set the preferred URL for your website you need to verify your ownership of your website by following the instructions that you will find under Google Webmaster Tools account.

You can also choose to set the preference to “Don’t set a preferred domain” in this case you are telling Google to consider different patterns to your domain as separate pages. As long as you are consistent with your linking pattern and with your usage of URL format, you will not have any problem. However if you happen to be inconsistent or if your linking partners choose to use their own format in their websites then the effect of link building will get diluted.

After setting your preference, you must allow some time for Google to reflect this change. By default, Google will take all the URLs in the non-preferred version and that is how it will index all the websites including yours. To be on the safer side you must set the option to Preferred Domain. This is not going to cost you any money, Google webmaster tools are free and it will hardly take few minutes to verify you site ownership  and to set the option. If you are not internet savvy, you can get help from your SEO company to have your preferences changed. One can easily overlook all these finer details but it is these finer details that differentiate you from those who get listed in the top positions in the search results.

Not many of us are ware of this wonderful platform for promoting our services and products online. Google base is a free platform that allows you to post any type of content. You can post your text content or post images, upload PDF, Excel, etc. Google Base is currently in its beta version and it is nothing but a database from Google. The content posted here can also appear in web search if it is found relevant to the search that is made. It can also appear in shopping searches. Currently, Google Base is available in English and German and this support will soon be extended to other languages after the beta phase.

How can we use Google Base to promote our services? Google Base serves as a free classifieds site and the best part is that it is part of Google network where millions of people come to search for information, services or products that they want. It is often compared to Craigslist, it can be used for listing current events, real estate, jobs etc. You will need a Google account to use this service. If you are promoting a product then the post will expire after 30 days and you can renew this for 30 more days. However, if you are posting reference articles, then it does not expire. Lot of people find this part of Google Base helpful. You can promote your eBay store or affiliate site or your own website. You will get the required exposure for your website and you can also post live link as part of the content. You don’t have to pay anything for using Google Base.

Moreover, the interface is one of the easiest interfaces and it does not ask you to fill too many fields. If you want to be found in Google Base searches, you must first of all come up with effective keywords that people use and frame a powerful title for your postings. Your postings become searchable almost immediately after you post it. Depending on the performance of your post you can also edit it to make it more appealing. Using reference articles you can create deep links for your website for free. However, the trick lies in finding keywords that are not too competitive but at the same time something people use a lot.

Another advantage of Google Base is that you can run your business online even without a website. You can get interested visitors contact you via email or other contact information that you post. However, having a website of your own is an added advantage because you will not be able to post all the information at Google Base. So it can be best used as a promotional platform rather than keeping it as the main channel for your business. If you make your posts interesting and useful you will get all the traffic and exposure you need.

Your site needs to be built for the searchers and users first, but you can’t ignore the search engines. The following are some basic tips on how to meet both goals and help your site succeed.

Analytics is a must for any site you plan to monetize. If you can’t track visitors, mash data and in general collect info, than you are going to fail. Miserably.

A banner or logo that immediately draws attention and reassures visitors that they are in the right place is imperative.

Balancing your page is important, too. Leave some space to keep it easy on the eye. Use an easy to read font, a muted background and a balance between text and graphics. 250-350 words is completely adequate for a home page.

Make sure you can easily revamp any step you take. Redirects should be a snap, and new pages should be added easily. Decide on a format for your urls and stick to it.

Your page titles, header tags and meta descriptions are a chance to optimize and sell your site. Take advantage of this! Write sharp, to the point copy to take advantage of this opportunity.

CCS makes it much easier for the search engines. Try to avoid unnecessary code - the more things you have to go wrong, the more things will go wrong! Likewise, plan on using text navigation instead of depending on Javascript.

Make sure your contact information is easy to find! Your phone number, business hours, etc should be clearly noted, especially if you have a location that might pick up foot traffic from web search!

Make sure you have an action button above the fold for those impulse driven consumers. Always make sure your shopping process is streamlined and easy, and display your security reassurances prominently.

Use bullet points or short paragraphs like this article to make reading easier and finding the relevant information a breeze. This can let you fully describe things without getting cluttered or cramped.

Don’t go crazy with bolding and highlighters. All this does is distract. You don’t want a manic website - leave that to the snake oil salesmen. Use only high quality graphics.

If you have a sign up, subscription or contact form, ask only for what you really need, and make sure your privacy policy is clear.

Sitemap. Sitemap. Sitemap. Sitemap. You need a static HTML one as well as an XML for your webmaster account. Make your sitemap accessible to your visitors as well!

These basic steps will help your website succeed. As you learn more, you can tweak things, but this is a good start!

All of us who want to have our website optimized for best performance in search engines are having Google in mind and when we talk of good rankings in search engines, we are inadvertently referring to ranking in Google. So after all those efforts that we are making, if we don’t find ourselves indexed by Google then we think that our efforts have gone futile irrespective of the results that we get in other search engines. But it is important for us to know why Google does not index a particular site. We know that it has billions of pages in its database and what makes my website to be skipped or left out from its indexing.

Google lists a number of reason why it misses your site while indexing. Google does not expect our website to be submitted to its search engine to be crawled the spiders will automatically find our website through the links that are found in other websites. However, these links shall not be from link farms or from purchased links or bad neighborhood. That is why it becomes important to do a press release as soon as you launch your website. This will help Google spiders to find your website easily for indexing. If you don’t have enough links from other websites pointing to your website then it may not be possible for Google spider to index you.

The next reason could be that you just missed the recent update. Since Google spiders have to crawl billions of pages, it takes a considerable time before it completes each cycle and with every cycle the number of web pages on the web keep increasing. Therefore, if you happen to miss an update then you need to be patient to allow Google spider to get back to you after sometime. Meanwhile you can work on link building through ethical methods.
Google has given the online community a set of guidelines to create Google friendly websites. If your website design is not compatible with those guidelines then Google may find it difficult to crawl your website effectively. This could be one of the reasons why your site may have been missed out. If you feel that your website indexing is taking longer than it should in spite of having good links for our website, then you must review your website design to see where you have gone wrong.

If you hosting service provider does not have reliable servers or it might have been unavailable temporarily when the Google spiders visited your site, then in that case too you will face indexing problems. Therefore, before signing up with a hosting service provider try to ensure that they are reliable and a reputed company. You will be able to find out whether there were any such problems while crawling your website, you can use Google Tools for the webmasters. Using the tips and guidelines that are provided by Google you will be able to overcome most of the issues discussed above.

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