An important and largely overlooked aspect of SEO is images ALT attributes. Most website have a lot of images and pictures but they can be used to not just look good, but to help improve the overall SEO of your website. Alt attributes are the text that describes your image. Alt attributes are displayed on the site while the images are loading, or when you hover over the image with your mouse. They also helps disabled people who are using text readers to read your web pages. Alt attributes are another place where you should insert your keywords to improve your organic rankings in the search engines. Even if your text content already contains keywords, you can still improve and reinforce your most important keywords using this method.
Having alt attributes along with naming your images as something descriptive will also drive traffic to your site from Google Images, and in effect, help your overall ranking. Some SEO companies abuse alt attributes and just fill them with all kinds of keywords. However, alt attributes are required if you want your site to validate with W3C standards.
It is a good idea to use keywords in alt attributes, just don't over do it. Not implementing alt attributes with your images could cost you important traffic.
The TITLE attribute, in contrast to the ALT attribute, can be used for virtually any html page element and is not a requirement according to the W3C. You can use TITLE attributes to describe links, tables, form, form attributes, individual table rows, lists, headings, blockquotes and other structural HTML elements. The TITLE attribute is more versatile than the ALT attribute and many search engine ranking algorithms read the text in TITLE attributes as regular page content.
Specifically, the TITLE attribute is an easy way to give the majority of your visitors more information without taking up valuable real estate on your page. The maximum permissible length of the TITLE text for Internet Explorer is more than a 1000 characters, but we recommend trying to keep your descriptions below 25 words, as much more than this can be very hard to take in at a glance.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Best 15 SEO Tools for Beginners
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of optimizing your web site to rank higher in SERP or Search Engine Result Position.
Being on #1 or page one of Google is the ultimate goal of any webmaster. It’s the key that separates the average site from the extraordinaire. Simply put, the higher you are on the search results, the more organic traffic you will get.
Studies have shown that most searchers don’t go beyond page three so if your site isn’t found in the first 3 pages for your keywords, you probably haven’t done enough to optimize your site.
Now the question is how do you know if you are doing the right thing?
That’s where online SEO tools are available at your disposal to check and diagnose the SEO status of your site so you can take all the necessary steps to improve your overall search engine ranking.
Below I have compiled a list of the Best SEO tools available on the net.
The Best 15 SEO Tools for Beginners
PageRank Checker is a free tool to check Google Page Ranking of any site and its pages easily and instantly. Google PageRank or PR is a measure of any sites popularity based on Google kept-secret algorithm. The PR is an indication of certain authority to your site and how important it is in the eyes of Google. For the uninformed, here’s how Google calculates your PR.
PageRank Search allows you to search Google using any keyword(s) you wish. It will then return, in order of Google relevance, the sites associated with those keywords. Each result displays a graphical bar with the PageRank of that particular site.
Internal Pages PR Checker will check the page rank of all of your site’s inner pages index by Google and it’s useful to use right after the PR update.
Link Popularity Checker is a tool that checks total number of pages in each search engines index that contains a link to your site, including your own website. It is used to measure your site’s online visibility. The popularity of your site is an important factor in your search engine ranking. The more popular your site is, the better it will be ranked on the search engines.
Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer help you determine the backlinks of your site and anchor text (link text) used to link to your site. Link Building is all about getting the quality backlinks along with the quantity. The truth is getting a few of the right links, from the right places can be more valuable than getting 100 links from the wrong places.
It’s all about using the right keywords you are trying to optimize as your anchor text (link text) from the right neighborhood.
Reciprocal Link Checker helps you ensure that your link partners are linking back to your site and determines what anchor text is used. Gone are the days when reciprocal links are considered important, the big G is now putting more weight on one-way (the best option) or three-way links (site A ↔ site C, site C ↔ site B and site B ↔ site A)
Keyword Density refers to the measurement in percentage, the number of times a keyword or phrase appears compared to the total number of words in a page which needs to balance correctly. Too low and you will not get the optimum benefit, Too high and your page might get flagged for “keyword spamming”.
This tool parses the most frequently keyword of a website and calculates its percentage share.
Keyword Suggestion Tool will help you with choosing of the right keywords for your website and analyze which keyword combinations are more popular. Choosing the right keywords is critical for a success of your site. Target the wrong keywords and you have lost.
There is pure gold hidden in less competitive keyword combinations and variations.
Link Analysis of External and Internal Links – The link analysis display all internal and external links of a website with the corresponding anchor texts in a summary table. It’s one of the best I have ever used.
SERP Position Checker is the keyword position analysis used to check on which position your domain is ranked for a given keyword and compare the first 100 results by Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Robots.txt Syntax Checker is the simplest tool to check the contents of your site’s robots.txt against the search engines standard, along with providing warnings on the wrong use of syntax.
In case you aren’t in the know, robots.txt file is the key to stopping search engines robots from indexing certain pages of your site which are deemed unnecessary to be included in the search results, yet many people still fail to get the syntax correct.
Copyscape scours the net and finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you. It is designed to protect you against online plagiarism and article theft.
Search Engine Placement Check is a verification tool that checks if your site is in the top three pages of a search engine result for a specific keyword. It’s important to be in the top 3 pages of a search result because most people using search engines don’t go past the 3rd page.
Bad Neighborhood Checker checks link pages and reports if there are links to bad neighborhoods. This tool will scan the links on your site, and on the pages that your site is linking to, and flag possible problem areas. This can greatly ease your SEO efforts.
Website Grader is a free SEO report that measures the marketing effectiveness of your site. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how your site can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Last But Not Least
SEO is never intended to be seen as touch-and-go effort in much the same way no success can be achieved overnight. It really takes a lot of patience, commitment and the know-hows to succeed. All the above tools will not bring you to #1 in search results but it helps you to be aware of ‘where you are now’ and ‘where you should aim to be in future’.
Knowledge is the key to SEO success
Indeed there are no hard and fast rules to SEO, it all boils down to the right mixture of quality content and quality inbound and outbound links with proper keywords optimization and all these tools will tell you if you are getting the right combination to move you closer to #1.
Being on #1 or page one of Google is the ultimate goal of any webmaster. It’s the key that separates the average site from the extraordinaire. Simply put, the higher you are on the search results, the more organic traffic you will get.
Studies have shown that most searchers don’t go beyond page three so if your site isn’t found in the first 3 pages for your keywords, you probably haven’t done enough to optimize your site.
Now the question is how do you know if you are doing the right thing?
That’s where online SEO tools are available at your disposal to check and diagnose the SEO status of your site so you can take all the necessary steps to improve your overall search engine ranking.
Below I have compiled a list of the Best SEO tools available on the net.
The Best 15 SEO Tools for Beginners
PageRank Checker is a free tool to check Google Page Ranking of any site and its pages easily and instantly. Google PageRank or PR is a measure of any sites popularity based on Google kept-secret algorithm. The PR is an indication of certain authority to your site and how important it is in the eyes of Google. For the uninformed, here’s how Google calculates your PR.
PageRank Search allows you to search Google using any keyword(s) you wish. It will then return, in order of Google relevance, the sites associated with those keywords. Each result displays a graphical bar with the PageRank of that particular site.
Internal Pages PR Checker will check the page rank of all of your site’s inner pages index by Google and it’s useful to use right after the PR update.
Link Popularity Checker is a tool that checks total number of pages in each search engines index that contains a link to your site, including your own website. It is used to measure your site’s online visibility. The popularity of your site is an important factor in your search engine ranking. The more popular your site is, the better it will be ranked on the search engines.
Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer help you determine the backlinks of your site and anchor text (link text) used to link to your site. Link Building is all about getting the quality backlinks along with the quantity. The truth is getting a few of the right links, from the right places can be more valuable than getting 100 links from the wrong places.
It’s all about using the right keywords you are trying to optimize as your anchor text (link text) from the right neighborhood.
Reciprocal Link Checker helps you ensure that your link partners are linking back to your site and determines what anchor text is used. Gone are the days when reciprocal links are considered important, the big G is now putting more weight on one-way (the best option) or three-way links (site A ↔ site C, site C ↔ site B and site B ↔ site A)
Keyword Density refers to the measurement in percentage, the number of times a keyword or phrase appears compared to the total number of words in a page which needs to balance correctly. Too low and you will not get the optimum benefit, Too high and your page might get flagged for “keyword spamming”.
This tool parses the most frequently keyword of a website and calculates its percentage share.
Keyword Suggestion Tool will help you with choosing of the right keywords for your website and analyze which keyword combinations are more popular. Choosing the right keywords is critical for a success of your site. Target the wrong keywords and you have lost.
There is pure gold hidden in less competitive keyword combinations and variations.
Link Analysis of External and Internal Links – The link analysis display all internal and external links of a website with the corresponding anchor texts in a summary table. It’s one of the best I have ever used.
SERP Position Checker is the keyword position analysis used to check on which position your domain is ranked for a given keyword and compare the first 100 results by Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Robots.txt Syntax Checker is the simplest tool to check the contents of your site’s robots.txt against the search engines standard, along with providing warnings on the wrong use of syntax.
In case you aren’t in the know, robots.txt file is the key to stopping search engines robots from indexing certain pages of your site which are deemed unnecessary to be included in the search results, yet many people still fail to get the syntax correct.
Copyscape scours the net and finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you. It is designed to protect you against online plagiarism and article theft.
Search Engine Placement Check is a verification tool that checks if your site is in the top three pages of a search engine result for a specific keyword. It’s important to be in the top 3 pages of a search result because most people using search engines don’t go past the 3rd page.
Bad Neighborhood Checker checks link pages and reports if there are links to bad neighborhoods. This tool will scan the links on your site, and on the pages that your site is linking to, and flag possible problem areas. This can greatly ease your SEO efforts.
Website Grader is a free SEO report that measures the marketing effectiveness of your site. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how your site can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Last But Not Least
SEO is never intended to be seen as touch-and-go effort in much the same way no success can be achieved overnight. It really takes a lot of patience, commitment and the know-hows to succeed. All the above tools will not bring you to #1 in search results but it helps you to be aware of ‘where you are now’ and ‘where you should aim to be in future’.
Knowledge is the key to SEO success
Indeed there are no hard and fast rules to SEO, it all boils down to the right mixture of quality content and quality inbound and outbound links with proper keywords optimization and all these tools will tell you if you are getting the right combination to move you closer to #1.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
More about Basics of Search Engine Optimization
Use real headings
Use the h1 – h6 elements for headings. Using graphics for headings may let you use any typeface you want, but search engines aren’t going to pay much attention. Even if you (as is required) use the alt attribute to specify alternate text for heading images, that text will not be anywhere near as important as real text in a heading element. In my experience, this is true even if the images are inside heading elements. If you know otherwise, please tell. If you cannot use real text, look at the various image or Flash replacement techniques that are available. Be aware that there may be a tiny risk involved in doing so. Since image replacement techniques involve hiding text, it is theoretically possible for search engines to penalise you. Currently that risk seems very slim, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if it does happen.
Use search engine friendly URLs
Avoid dynamically generated URLs that use a query string to let the server know which data to fetch from a database. Search engine robots may have difficulties with this kind of URL – they may stop at the question mark and not even look at the query string. Use search engine friendly, human readable URLs instead. This will help both your ranking and your users. I’ve seen incredible improvements in search engine results from just changing the URL scheme of a site. Modifying and rewriting a site’s URLs can be a little tricky, and some CM systems make it more difficult than others to implement. It is worth the effort though.
Avoid using frames
While it is possible to provide workarounds that allow search engine robots to crawl frame based sites, frames will still cause problems for the people who find your site through search engines. When somebody follows the link from a search result listing to a frame based site, they will land on an orphaned document, outside of its parent frameset. This is very likely to cause confusion, since in many cases vital parts of the site, like navigational links, will be absent. Some sites use JavaScript or server side scripting to redirect anyone trying to load a document outside of its parent frameset to the site’s home page. This is a very user hostile thing to do, and it definitely does not help the people visiting your site. Just lose the frames. They are bad for usability anyway.
Be careful with browser detection
If you need to use some kind of browser detection, make sure that it doesn’t break when a search engine spider (or any unknown user agent) comes along. If the spiders can’t get in, you won’t be found. I’ve seen this happen on the sites of fairly large companies.
Don’t waste your time on meta tags
Most search engines don’t place any great deal of value on the contents of meta tags anymore. They have been used way too much by spammers. I’d suggest using the meta description element, but that’s all. Keywords won’t hurt, but they will rarely help either, so they are generally not worth the effort. Some search engines use the contents of the meta description element to describe your site in their search result listings, so if possible, make its contents unique and descriptive for every document.
Use the h1 – h6 elements for headings. Using graphics for headings may let you use any typeface you want, but search engines aren’t going to pay much attention. Even if you (as is required) use the alt attribute to specify alternate text for heading images, that text will not be anywhere near as important as real text in a heading element. In my experience, this is true even if the images are inside heading elements. If you know otherwise, please tell. If you cannot use real text, look at the various image or Flash replacement techniques that are available. Be aware that there may be a tiny risk involved in doing so. Since image replacement techniques involve hiding text, it is theoretically possible for search engines to penalise you. Currently that risk seems very slim, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if it does happen.
Use search engine friendly URLs
Avoid dynamically generated URLs that use a query string to let the server know which data to fetch from a database. Search engine robots may have difficulties with this kind of URL – they may stop at the question mark and not even look at the query string. Use search engine friendly, human readable URLs instead. This will help both your ranking and your users. I’ve seen incredible improvements in search engine results from just changing the URL scheme of a site. Modifying and rewriting a site’s URLs can be a little tricky, and some CM systems make it more difficult than others to implement. It is worth the effort though.
Avoid using frames
While it is possible to provide workarounds that allow search engine robots to crawl frame based sites, frames will still cause problems for the people who find your site through search engines. When somebody follows the link from a search result listing to a frame based site, they will land on an orphaned document, outside of its parent frameset. This is very likely to cause confusion, since in many cases vital parts of the site, like navigational links, will be absent. Some sites use JavaScript or server side scripting to redirect anyone trying to load a document outside of its parent frameset to the site’s home page. This is a very user hostile thing to do, and it definitely does not help the people visiting your site. Just lose the frames. They are bad for usability anyway.
Be careful with browser detection
If you need to use some kind of browser detection, make sure that it doesn’t break when a search engine spider (or any unknown user agent) comes along. If the spiders can’t get in, you won’t be found. I’ve seen this happen on the sites of fairly large companies.
Don’t waste your time on meta tags
Most search engines don’t place any great deal of value on the contents of meta tags anymore. They have been used way too much by spammers. I’d suggest using the meta description element, but that’s all. Keywords won’t hurt, but they will rarely help either, so they are generally not worth the effort. Some search engines use the contents of the meta description element to describe your site in their search result listings, so if possible, make its contents unique and descriptive for every document.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
5 Good Reasons why you need an SEO strategy:
Search can help you achieve your business goals
Want more customers? More leads? More sales? The internet is a huge marketplace and consumers appear to have lost their fear of buying things via the web. Search engines are often the starting place for a product search, and they’re getting more popular. More than half of all internet users search at least once a day. E-commerce is booming.
Brand visibility / find-ability
About a quarter of all web searches contain a brand term, such as a product or company name, either on its own or combined with other generic keywords. Should you really have to pay to be found following a search on your brand? Also, when consumers add brand terms to generic searches it is a great indicator of purchase intent.
Don’t allow your competitors to rank higher than you on your own products!
Paid search is becoming more expensive
There is greater competition in paid search these days, which means click costs have increased in many sectors to a point where there is limited scope for profit. Your ability to generate ROI depends on how well you convert traffic to customers, and paid search traffic can cost a lot of money.
People prefer the natural results
Users tend to choose the natural search results in preference to the paid-search listings. According to a sample figures for selection of natural search were 60.8% for Yahoo! and 72.3% for Google. This figure increases for experienced users. This suggests that companies who concentrate on paid listings only are limiting their visibility.
SEO helps you build a better website
Therefore it helps you build a better user experience, if only because of the focus on what you should be doing for the maximum impact in the organic search listings. Better usability. Better fulfillment paths. Happy customers mean higher satisfaction rates and more repeat business.
Want more customers? More leads? More sales? The internet is a huge marketplace and consumers appear to have lost their fear of buying things via the web. Search engines are often the starting place for a product search, and they’re getting more popular. More than half of all internet users search at least once a day. E-commerce is booming.
Brand visibility / find-ability
About a quarter of all web searches contain a brand term, such as a product or company name, either on its own or combined with other generic keywords. Should you really have to pay to be found following a search on your brand? Also, when consumers add brand terms to generic searches it is a great indicator of purchase intent.
Don’t allow your competitors to rank higher than you on your own products!
Paid search is becoming more expensive
There is greater competition in paid search these days, which means click costs have increased in many sectors to a point where there is limited scope for profit. Your ability to generate ROI depends on how well you convert traffic to customers, and paid search traffic can cost a lot of money.
People prefer the natural results
Users tend to choose the natural search results in preference to the paid-search listings. According to a sample figures for selection of natural search were 60.8% for Yahoo! and 72.3% for Google. This figure increases for experienced users. This suggests that companies who concentrate on paid listings only are limiting their visibility.
SEO helps you build a better website
Therefore it helps you build a better user experience, if only because of the focus on what you should be doing for the maximum impact in the organic search listings. Better usability. Better fulfillment paths. Happy customers mean higher satisfaction rates and more repeat business.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
