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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 In creating a website we try to desperately to make something aesthetically pleasing, and there are so many methods to that madness. But the prettier the page, often means the more code we have to implement. More code equals less SEO friendly. Some things, in fact, will create a page that is not “crawler friendly,” and thus create problems when trying to get a site indexed or ranked. You want the crawlers (robots, spiders, se’s, whatever) to have as easy a time as possible. So let’s touch on a few things that will make a world of difference.

    Robots tag vs. Robots.txt file

    The robots.txt file is used in regard to directing a search engine. Not so much on where to go, as where not to go. You can use it to tell a search engine not to index a certain page or pages, or not to follow certain links. This is usually the case where there is confidential information you wouldn’t want a search engine to index, but can sometimes inadvertently cause a page to not be crawled at all. You will want to be careful in your robots.txt creation to avoid preventing a crawler on your site. This has, many times, been the cause for a site not being indexed. The same holds true for the robots tag. The robots tag is a little less customizable, and is rarely needed because most people put it on “index, follow” which is the default anyway.

    JavaScript

    A lot of cool functions and graphics can be achieved with the use of JavaScript. The problem is that sometimes the use requires a lot of code to be placed in the HEAD of the site. Though the code is ignored by the search engines, they still have to drudge through all of it to get to the readable code. Some search engines have a timeout or a maximum character read before they will just leave and move to the next site. It’s best to call the JavaScript from an outside file if at all possible. Also, be mindful that an error in JavaScript can cause a crawler to stop completely, again, moving to the next site. So, just be mindful of the extra stuff you put on your site. Try to keep the code clean and prevent a possible problem. Just remember that the crawler for a search engines has a great deal of work to do. It has to be fast, efficient, and simple. This simplicity means that it’s not going to work too hard to get what it needs before it gives up.

    Thank you, Mr. Roboto. (I really couldn’t resist)

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 When optimizing a site, we are faced with many daunting tasks. It’s hard enough to generally optimize a page for “the search engines.” But when we say “the search engine,” what are we talking about. Obviously Google, Yahoo!, and MSN carry many differences, so optimizing for one would not necessarily yield results in another. So what do each of these main players in the search engine business care about most? Google Google gives some consideration to content, meaning that your site should provide a good amount of information. Keyword stuffing is quite useless in this case, as the Google crawler doesn’t even look at keywords. The biggest thing with Google is to be sure you aren’t using any “black hat” methods like hidden text. They seem to be the best at finding and penalizing for these methods. The next biggest thing is link popularity. Google gives so much consideration to this, that webmasters all over the world are complaining about the lack of real relevance when searching on Google. To be honest, Google gives such a low consideration to the meta tags, that I am wondering why I mention them in a consultation. But then I remember that there are indeed other search engines. MSN MSN places a very large emphasis on the description tag. If that is well written and relevant to the site, you can almost count on MSN’s love. The give next priority to the title tag and content on the site. They don’t seem to be as concerned with link popularity as Google, which is actually why, in my opinion, MSN returns better results when searching. (I can’t believe I just plugged a Micro$oft product, but it’s true) Yahoo! Well, now we come to something that may be changing quite a bit. A month ago I could say that Yahoo! places most of it’s consideration on the Title tag, then on the content of the page. But there are reports that they will be moving towards the link popularity idea. There are even more reports that they will be giving consideration to only relevant and worthy links, so that will make it a little better than Google, but I really don’t know how much consideration it will be getting. In the mean time, we will stick with the idea that title is most important, followed by the content on the site and good use of the title tag. Synopsis In Order of importance. Google * Link Popularity * Content * Readability MSN * Description * Content with good use of the description Yahoo! * Title tag * Content with good use of the title words * May be giving more emphasis on link popularity All in all, we should be optimizing for every search engine. Sure, Google sees a lot of traffic, but closing 2 other doors of substantial opportunity just to keep one open is silly. Besides, there isn’t really anything that one search engine would require that would hamper rankings in another, so there is no reason not to consider all of them.

    I hope this helps to clear up a lot of questions. Everyone has their search engine preference so this should help answer some of those questions.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 I seem to be in a real “talk about marketing” mood this week. To continue with this theme, I want to take a small amount of time to discuss marketing on forums. Forums, in my opinion, can provide some of the best information. You can ask a question (which is rare because if you have a question, odds are that someone else did too and already asked it) and get an answer from many different sources with many different points of view, providing with a good source of information. Because forums are so convenient and informative, they are everywhere. I am hard pressed to find a topic that is not touched on almost specifically in a forum. Because of these reasons, they seem to gain and retain a loyal following. I have about 5 forums on my Google homepage that I visit more than 3 times a day each. And because of their wide range of topics and visibility, they offer an opportunity to help drive traffic to your site. But there is a right and a wrong way to do this.

    The wrong way first. People on forums are there for a reason. To share ideas, help others, provide information, or be in search for ideas, help, or information. The very last thing I want to see when searching my favorite forum (unless it is an appropriate topic) is a shameless plug for someone’s own company. I hate seeing a post for “This has got to be the best site ever” posted by the webmaster of that site. Not only will this likely get the post removed, but you will also risk a ban from the forum, and more importantly, leave a bitter taste in the mouths of an online community, and with the exception of my Fiance, very few things are more dangerous than that. I mentioned “unless it is an appropriate topic.” The forums I visit know of the importance of getting your message out there, and provide categories for such a thing. This not only helps those who want to make use of forums for marketing, but keeps the other topics clean of such annoyances, thus providing a further service. WebPro World does this, and I can see that they probably have and retain more, happier members because of it.

    The right way. If you want to make use of a forum to help promote yourself, then you should do so while simultaneously providing a bit of help. A good idea is to go to your favorite search engine, and search for “your topic forums.” This will give you a wide range of forums to choose from. Find one that fits you, and become a member. Be sure to read their rules about posting and signatures. If allowed, make a signature with a link to your site. Then do a search for a topic on something to which you can provide a service. Write an article that will provide information to help others, and politely provide information on your site. Be a little heavier on the information part. Like your website, you main goal should to be to provide a service/product/assistance to the online world. In this environment, you will do this with an offer of free help.

    To recap, make use of the avenues provided on the web, but don’t be too pushy. Try to be the car salesman who provides his name, and then waits to offer help. Don’t be that car guy that follows you around, telling you things about a car that you don’t want to know, offering his “assistance” that you don’t want, and promising deals that you don’t care about. I often provide these guys with the best possible location in which they can shove their deals.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Optimizing a website is only part of the SEO / SEM process. Once a site is optimized for the search engines, you still have to consider “old-fashioned” ways of marketing your product or service. Before the Internet, we used magazines, billboards, T.V. commercials and endorsements, among other creative ways to advertise. The Internet is no different. You have to get your name out there and bring hits to your site. Let’s check one of these methods. Banner Ads If the Internet is the “information super highway,” then banners would be our billboards. Basically, banners will be a small picture or animation placed on other websites that, when clicked, would lead to your website. You can see an example by going to MSN.com in the upper right corner of the search engine. There is always an advertisement there. Most sites implement banners in much the same way, setting up a specified space for banners. This creates an advertising space, providing the ad to a potential customer, yet preventing an annoyance that would be created with pop-ups. I won’t name any specifics (Mostly because I don’t like banners myself. Hated billboards…hate these. But hey, they work and we use what works), but there are a number of banner services out there to get you started. You can find every service from the creation of a banner, online editors for those do-it-yourselfers, the promotions of an already created banner, and everything in between. Now, if you go to MSN and see a banner, then go back 5 minutes later, you will see a different banner ad. They rotate, giving MSN the power to provide banner space for more than one customer. Most services that offer the promotion of a banner advertisement, do it in one of two ways. You can purchase “impressions,” which means that if your banner is shown to a website’s visitor, regardless of a click through or not, that counts as 1 impression. Usually these impressions are purchased in large blocks, sometimes in the tens of thousands. The second way is a purchase of an amount of clicks. This means that your banner is shown as many times as is necessary to use up the determined amount of down payment you provide to the service, much in the same way a Pay-Per-Click service is handled. Google (I know I know. I said I wouldn’t promote any, but I like Google) provides a banner service in this way with their Adwords program. There are other service methods, like trading banner clicks, in where if you show a banner, and it gets a click, your banner will be shown somewhere for the same amount of clicks, but the first 2 are the most popular.

    I said that I don’t like banners. But that wasn’t because they don’t work. It’s really just one of the many ticks I have. Banners do indeed work…greatly. If you have a well designed and worded banner, and the service you use, you can get a good amount of relevant traffic, for a fairly low price. Like every form of marketing out there, you have to play with it though. Sometimes you may not get a click through for something so simple as a bad color or too many/ too few words. Find out what works for you, and you could be a very happy banner….ummm…person.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 6, 2006 I know there is a lot on this blog, but it just started and I want to get a lot of the basics on here so we can start to get into the good stuff. I’m also gonna try to categorize the basics so that we can reference them as needed. So now I want to talk about link popularity. We will discuss the basics of this, then get into the coding anchor tags so hold on to your butts…it’s gonna be fun. Google, as stated many times, wants to make the Internet “easier and more organized.” This is a big debate lately as some results they provide are lacking in both of those areas, but that’s what they are trying to do according to them. One thing Google does is look at how the rest of the community feels about you. Let’s say I sell cars. I post a sign, but my lot is far back from the road and hard to see. Well that kinda sucks, how am I gonna sell cars this way. So I go to my local repair shop one day, and talk with the manager. I say “Dude, if you get a customer that comes in, and needs a new car, why not send them my way.” So Mr. repair guy is cool with that. So this brings me a few customers, and as time goes by, my customers refer me to more customers. Well one day, the mayor of SEO Town gets his car repaired, and is told about my lot. He gets a shiny new car for his daughter. Wow. The mayor now knows about my lot and liked my service. He tells all his friends. This will bring in a lot more customers. And these customers will spend more money because they are higher in our food chain. The mayor happens to have a cousin in a major car manufacturing plant. When he finds out about me, I get a ton more business. Who wouldn’t buy a car from a place that was referred to by the car maker? This is great and dandy, but my lot is still so removed from the road. And then it happens. The state newspaper does a poll and everyone in SEO Town refers my lot as the best car sales lot around. So the paper gives me all sorts of space in the periodical. Now, everyone that picks up the paper will see me. Now, I can afford a new lot with a better location, and even some advertising. I’m gonna sell many much cars. This is Google. Google is the newspaper and everyone one of these customers is another site. Some of those referrals from these other sites definitely helped, but when the car manufacturer (a very “important” site) decided to plug me, I got a lot more attention, especially when Googled asked about me. You want a link on other pages that point to your site. This is link popularity. But more importantly, you want links on other pages of sites that are relevant and rank well. This is quality inbound links. This will help in online business in 2 ways. First, for a while you will get hits from that other site and probably some business if it’s a good site and people trust them. Second, after a while Google will crawl the Internet and see that all these relevant, well-ranking sites link to you. Google will say “Dude, this guy must totally be werd up.” (That’s really how Google talks. Really) Now, a link is not a link. You could have a banner on someone’s site, and that will bring traffic, but not help in Google like it could. What you want is a “text link.” This is just a simple link with no pictures or frills. And here is the reason. This is what a link looks like in HTML: My Site This is technically called an anchor tag. All that will show on the site is the ‘My Site’ part, but will likely be underlined and can be clicked to go to the ‘http://www.wspseoguy.webword.com’ site. Now, look at the ‘My Site’ part. This is what everyone will see and will be real text on the site, so also what the search engines will see. You would really want this to be a search term. So maybe SEO Service would be more appropriate since I would want to be found by that term if I were optimizing this blog to be found when someone types “seo blog.” You will want as many of these out there, and really target sites that are relevant and rank well. Well what the hell, SEO Guy? How do I get these links. My customer will be clueless. Well, I can’t give away a bunch of secrets. Perhaps the next thing we will talk about is directories, but for now I’m really tired so let’s do it like this. Do a search for the terms you would like to be found under in Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. See all those results? Those are potential link partners. Every website has/ should have a contact e-mail address of some sort. Send them an e-mail. Tell them what you’re site is all about. Make sure to have a link to their site first, and ask if they would be cool with linking to you. Most sites are all to obliged to do this, and some even have a form that you will simply need to fill out, automating the process. You should shoot for the relevant sites for the first three pages on the results. Then, go to their “links” page if they have one. See all those links? Those are likely already link partners and have a higher chance of being willing to become link partners with you. Obviously this is SEO. There is a little more to it sometimes, and there are tricks you can do to legitimately get links. One thing I would like to warn against is “Link Farms” or “webrings” or any service that can guarantee “thousands of quality links in minutes,” or anything like that. These are not quality, never legit, and will almost always be frowned upon and known by Google.

    I love you all. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 After reading my last post on CSS and SEO, a buddy of mine asked for a more detailed reason on what exactly about CSS will reduce the amount of code. I figure, “hey, I got a blog. Might as well explain it here.” Do yourself a favor and read the original post, ‘CSS and SEO’ so that you are at least familiar with the idea of CSS. So, now we know what CSS is and that it helps, no? Well here is an example: Let’s just say you want to have a section of text on your site. With HTML we would normally place a table on the page to set aside an area for the text like so

    Text that would be in the table.

    That’s not too much I know, but stick with me. In CSS we could declare a ‘div’ tag on a completely seperate page that the crawler wouldn’t have to drudge through, but the browser would adhere to. Like so” .spacesaver { position:absolute; left:thismuch: top:thatmuch; height:whatever; width:whatever; background:mycolor; border-style:neatborderstyle; border-style-width:furthercustomization; } Now this looks like a lot more code, but notice a few things. Not only can I make the same table I could in HTML, but I can also determine a lot more aspects like the border style, color, and width, and the exact placement of the text area. I could go further to determine the font information, but normally I would do that in a seperate definition. But how does this help in our code? Well when putting it in the HTML page it would look like this:

    Text that would be in the table.

    So that’s a lot less code. And anyone that has been building websites knows that the original table we had would not really suffice. The real saver comes when we would normally make nested tabels, requiring a great deal more code….a great deal. Also, when it comes to table as in this example, the browser reads tables from inside out. So having nested tables, with all sorts of declarations on the look of the table, could create a lot of code. Also consider the amount of code it takes to declare how each ‘

    looks in the HTML, or every header tag. Everything that you can do in HTML to determine the look and placement, can be done in CSS. If this helps, let me know. If it doesn’t help. Let me know.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 Link popularity is a very important aspect of SEO and website promotion. It not only brings traffic to your site, but also helps the validity of your website’s importance in the eyes of Google and other search engines. There is, however, a big no no in the industry. Link farms. Before reading further, you may want to check the last Link Popularity post I have for a good basic idea on what link popularity is, and a good analogy to help with the philosophy.

    History

    There was a time when having meta tags and stuffing your site with keywords would get your site ranked highly. The search engines noticed that webmasters noticed this, and had to change it up a bit. Realizing that they gave too much consideration to onsite optimization, the search engines decided to take into account off page aspects (enter link popularity). Now, we savvy web dorks knew that we could get a lot of links. Not as easy to manipulate the engines, but we could very well setup services or a whole bunch of sites that would link to one site. Thus creating, at the time, link popularity. And again, the search engines caught us catching on, and upped the requirements just a bit.

    Today

    The idea now, is to not have just any link to your site. Links are still good no matter what, but really only for traffic, and not as much in the SERP’s. Google has placed a ‘quality over quantity’ policy, meaning that a site that has an inbound link from a relevant, higher ranking site, that in turn has a lot of links coming in to it, will give more validity than a link coming from just anywhere. So, we want links from sites that are relevant, and have a better link popularity than we do. And now the reason for this post. There are still link farms out there. Basically sites that have nothing more than links on them, or services in which a ring of sites all link to each other (web ring). These services often cost money, and do little more than get you in trouble with Google. Believe me, they notice. It might not be today, maybe not next week, but the search engines will catch on. This could mean anything from bad rankings to blacklisting. So, do yourself a favor. Don’t fall for any “shortcuts” or services that will automate too much of the process. Implementation So how do you get links? There are a few ways.

    1) Directories. This is something of a step one as it’s a way to get a good amount of links rather quickly. Simply look for directories (starting with DMOZ, of course), and submit your site to them. This will put your site in a certain category pertaining to your industry/ service, and help in link popularity just a little. Google seems to be giving less prominence to links that come from directories because they are so easy, but still a decent start.

    2) Link Exchanging. The most tedious of the methods, requiring you to look for valid link partners, email/calling them, and setting up the link. If you’re site is still new, it’s pretty difficult to get this going, but more rewarding than the directories idea. It’s a good idea to place a link to the other site first, to show that you are willing to link to them before even asking for a return of the favor.Put those sales skills to the test, and explain what your site is all about and how you can mutually benefit each other. Don’t expect too much, but don’t get discouraged. It will come with finesse and time.

    3) Quality. This idea still seems to elude webmasters and SEO Specialists alike. This is the single most important and rewarding method. Simply put, have a website that is rich in valuable content, providing a true service to the online community. With time and visitors, other site owners will link to you for no other reason than your excellent site. This will show to Google, and will indeed help with your ranking. Link popularity aside, your site should be this important anyway. There is already plenty of nonsense on the Internet, we don’t need anymore. Make a site worth making, and worth visiting.

    So, this is link popularity in explanation. It’s a good thing, but be careful when getting these links. Remember, we aren’t trying to trick the search engines or exploit any loopholes. We are merely proving to the search engines that our site is indeed important.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 7, 2006 One of the terms used a great deal in the SEO industry is “PageRank.” PageRank is basically Google’s way of telling how “important” a page is. It is often thought that a good PageRank will inherently mean a good ranking. This is not so…sorta.

    Google’s PageRank is determined primarily on quality inbound links, sometimes called “Link Popularity.” There is a neat little explanation of the algorithm used to determine PageRank here for all you math enthusiasts out there. It’s a good read, but gets deep. One thing on this. For your PR to increase, the site linking to you will need to have a good ranking and be a relevant website.

    Now, PR does not mean that you will rank higher in Google, it just means that you have the proper criteria for inbound links, which means you will rank higher in Google. Funny huh? There is a lot of debate on whether you should consider a website’s PR before exchanging links with them. Nobody can give an exact answer for sure, because nobody knows. I can tell you that considering the algorithm, and logic, the theory is sound to me.

    I do indeed use the PR as a way of seeing if my SEO methods are working. Not the first way, and not the most important, but a way. You can check your, and other site’s PR with Google’s Toolbar.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 9, 2006 I promise I will write something good and original today. But first, I wanted to give props to Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall of SEO Book for an incredible list of 101 Ways To Build Link Popularity In 2006. This list is a bit to get through, but I found things that I had never thought of. Very useful.

    Link building is a very important aspect of SEO that, unfortunately, can not be ignored. It is also one of the most hated because of it’s time consumption and work required. This post At SEO Book should help out a lot.

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  • SEO Factor Blog

    October 6, 2006 I was very recently asked by a friend about alt tags in reference to using them to increase keyword relevancy. I answered, and she wanted to know if it was bad to stuff them with keywords (really funny that she should use the word ‘stuffing.’ You’ll see later), and if so, how bad. I hope this helps explain it. Alt tags were created and implemented for Internet browsers that don’t see images, and used by those with seeing disabilities. So, if I am blind, and I go to a site, my computer will tell me what the picture on a site is (whatever is written in the alt tags). The code is as such: whatever Being that this is a function for the greater of the Internet, a lot of search engines looked at this tag for a number of reasons. First, no search engines can see images, so they use that tag to tell what the image is. Second, and Google is known for this, a proper alt tag would reflect positively on a website as it shows the intent of it’s creator by accommodating the disabilities of some web surfers, thus making for a better online community. Because of the search engine’s view of this tag, we used to (used to as in a long long time ago) be able to stuff the alt tag with a lot of keywords and such for higher rankings. The search engines thought that if “hey, they have a picture of a car on this website,” proving further that the site was relevant to the term ‘car.’ The search engines caught on rather quickly, and now will actually penalize for such offenses. The only thing they want to see in the alt tag is a very short, very specific description of that image. It is a common method to place the description tag, or a lot of keywords in the alt tags. This, by definition, is known as “keyword stuffing.” It’s a giant no no in SEO. The search engines are seeing a large repetition of the description tag exactly as it is written in the meta. This on copy alone is bad. They are also seeing that every alt tag is the same. So they ask, “why does this site have the exact same picture on the page so many times? Oh, I don’t think it does. Nobody would do that. So I deduce that this site is just stuffing the terms. Oh wait, it also happens to be the description tag. Let’s stamp that with our ‘Seal of Disapproval’.” Google also sees this as taking advantage and misusing a function that is in place to help those who need that help. Hence the severity in which they will sometimes penalize.

    So, Unamed Friend, to answer your question on stuffing the alt tags. It is bad.

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