Search Engine Optimization Tips Blog

Do you want your website listed in DMOZ? It can be frustrating – you know that being listed will probably help your Google rankings, but approvals can take a very long time. Actually, most problems stem from what you do when submitting your site.

DMOZ is also called the Open Directory Project (ODP). It is a manually categorized directory of websites and pages which are reviewed by a staff of volunteers before inclusion; all listings in DMOZ are free.

DMOZ isn’t generally utilized for search like Yahoo or Bing, but does serve an important function for Google users as Google takes DMOZ listing into account, including it in their own directory. This means that websites that are listed in DMOZ may have a better ranking, since DMOZ has mad PageRank. Since PageRank is a huge part of Google’s ranking algorithm, your website’s PageRank is increased by DMOZ listings since you will receive one link from DMOZ and one from the Google directory. Just being listed in DMOZ can also get you many more links from sites that download the directory.

The main problem in getting listed in DMOZ is the time lag – the site appears to say they have nearly 60,000 editors (volunteers who review and categorize websites) but this is actually a number reflecting all editors the website has had since inception, most of whom are no longer with the project. This means there are hundreds or thousands of submissions daily, and very few editors to review them all. Each editor in addition can only review in their assigned categories, and this means backlogs can occur frequently.

However, this is not the only reason for delays – often, the DMOZ submission is done wrong to begin with. If you submit to the wrong category, it can take forever as it works its way up the queue, only to be bounce to another editor and start over at the bottom of the pile. If that category still isn’t the correct one, the process could start all over again! This means that it is very important to research and make sure you are submitting to the right category.

If you have multiple sites, this may start to eat up a lot of time – so having a DMOZ submission service help you out might be a wise move. They can guarantee that your site is sent to the correct category and editor the first time and keep you from getting stuck in a huge traffic pileup waiting your turn at wrong tollgates.

Some sites may even be rejected because they do not have enough unique content. An SEO can look at your content and tell you if it is unique enough to be considered for  DMOZ. Affiliates are the most often rejected because of too much duplicate type content. Also, sites may be rejected because the submission was done wrong in regard to the title or description – these must follow DMOZ guidelines or editors will throw the request out.

People are not informed that their site has been rejected, so it can be nerve-wracking to wonder if you are stuck in queue or already kicked back as not correct. A submission service can help ensure that everything is done correctly and help you avoid sleepless nights wondering ‘Did my DMOZ submission get rejected?

Linking isn’t just for PageRank anymore – you need to link for value as well

XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) extends versions of HTML, the language in which web pages are written.  HTML used to be defined as an application of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which was very flexible. XHTML is an application of XML, a subset of SGML that is not so forgiving!  HTML requires a lenient HTML-specific parser, but XHTML can be parsed with a more specific type because it is cleaner and more well formed.

XHTML was originally created to make HTML easier to integrate with other data formats. It was hoped that shifting to an XML format would make HTML compatible with common XML tools, letting servers and proxies transform content for constrained devices such as mobile phones. However, the very tidiness of XML means if there are mistakes, there will be trouble for browsers trying to read the code, so XHTML validation service is recommended if you have an XML based site. Otherwise your visitors will look like this as their browser fails to read your site correctly:

Eeeek!

In HTML, some tags may not have closing tags, but all elements must be explicitly closed in XHTML. There are many other types of opening and closing elements that if used inconsistently or incorrectly in XHTML will cause problems with your site. For example, HTML permits omitting end tags for some elements, such as <p>, but XHTML forbids this. Also, HTML regards nearly everything as case-insensitive, but in XML all element and attribute names are case-sensitive. XHTML requires all element and attribute names to be lowercase, while in HTML documents let you mix and match cases.

If you don’t follow the proper XHTML rules and recommendations, some browsers will parse empty elements incorrectly. XHTML 1.0 is basically a XML serialization of HTML 4.0, but HTML 5 is the first (X)HTML standard designed to support both HTML and XHTML serializations equally. Since HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 are so similar, many web sites and content management systems have adopted the initial W3C XHTML 1.0 Recommendation. The W3C provided guides to help webmasters publish XHTML 1.0 documents in an HTML-compatible manner, and serve them to XHTML browsers, but many webmasters still have problems with unvalidated XHTML.

This means that you should definitely have the XHTML validation done on your site, so you can ensure that your site is viewable with any current browser. When the XHTML is validated, all errors such as ones listed above (improper case use, incorrectly closed tags, etc) can be corrected, making your site load and display with cross browser compatibility.

The popularity of online video has skyrocketed, with Americans who have high speed internet leading the pack in terms of consumption; Nielsen estimates that in December 2009, around 137 million viewers of online video in the United States viewed an average of 193 video minutes each. This is nudging advertisers toward onine video advertising and away from standard TV ads.

On the way out? Time will tell…

The targeted nature and extensive research done on online consumers makes online advertising as effective as television. Most online video-ad platforms also enable multiple methods of pinpointing customers in the target demographic or locale.

Banner ads, interactive ads and spoofs can be used to grab customers attention and boost response rates. The flexibility of online applications allows for many more scenarios than channel surfing.

So, should you have video ads on your site? The returns can be high, but you have to be sure not to alienate your visitors! If they have a slow computer, the video ad may dramatically slow performance, freeze heir screen, or even crash heir browser application. However, if you feel most of your visitors will not have thsi problem, look for ads to display that have a strong ROI and are presented properly. Some things to look for in a potential advertising partner include:

A strong call to action. The video format allows immediate calls-to-action, so ads should include a clickable link to the advertisers’ website, with code that tracks all clicks as originating from your webpage in order for you to get credit.

Interactive ads or apps increase the power of marketing videos. Interactive video ads measure viewers’ responses by tracking their real-time interactions, and can be Flash based or allow interaction in the player itself.

Ads should be targeted to your audience. If the people visiting your site are looking for baby skin care products, they may not be interested in denture cream.

TV spots are still very a important advertising medium for local and national businesses. However, with more and more people spending their viewing time online, the advantages of snagging good advertising partners for your site should not be overlooked.

Just attempt to get the best ads you can for your demographic, and find ones that load fast and don’t take too much power to run – your visitors will leave your site rather than stay if annoying online videos ruin their visit. Make sure there is a way for visitors to quickly shut down or mute the ad if it proves annoying.

Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI, is not a new concept. LSI If you have been doing SEO on your site, then you have surely spent time researching the keywords and phrases that are the most likely to help your website rank higher on Google than your competitors. High search engine ranking, however, involves more than keyword density and selection. Search engines have become smarter after seeing the opportunity for abuse of their original algorithms, and now rely on a concept called latent semantic indexing to determine rankings.

Latent semantic indexing is an algorithmic determination of the words and phrases used in each section of text and considers the patterns which appear in proportion between words and phrases. The idea is that the quality can be set based on how keywords and phrases are used in relationship to one another. This is a huge improvement over the ‘quantity’ based way that originally looked mainly at density. This allows webmasters to provide high quality content written naturally so they can outrank junk sites that are keyword stuffed. Internet users also reap the rewards  from readily accessible and relevant content.

LSI requires the use of semantically related words on your website to get that all important higher search ranking.Using synonymous words and phrases in the content allows the search engines to truly see the value of your site.LSI considers website relevance by analyzing all of the content and  comparing relationships between words and phrasing. If you build a themed website, this will help your  ranking. Themed websites consist of articles that focus on a central topic. A website about dogs as pets shouold not have a bunch of cat articles – save those for the cat site. Otherwise you have reduced the relevance of your site to the main theme.

Latent semantic indexing evaluates not only the quality of the content but basics such as grammar, spelling, etc. Gone will be teh sites using cheap writers to spawn huge amounts of ‘SEO’ content. Instead, internet users will be presented with the sites that give valuable information they want, while website owners will have a strong incentive to fill their sites with well written, releant content. In short, the days of keyword stuffing are over. It’s time to fall back on good research and good writing in order to get higher search engine rankings.

 Subscribe in a reader

• Email Subscription by Feedburner