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The Role Of Inbound Links, Serp August 22, 2010

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The quality of your inbound links is a key factor that search engines will use to rank your pages. Contrary to popular belief, the number of links you have is not that important. Having a few high quality links is much better than having a bunch of links that are low in quality. Inboud links can be defined as the links that are added to other websites which point back to your site, sending traffic to it. There are a number of strategies you can use to get high quality inbound links. Remember, the quality, not the quantity, is the most important factor you will want to take into consideration. One of the most common ways to get quality inbound links is to exchange links with sites that are similar in theme to your own.

To do this, all you have to do is find websites that are related in topic to your own, and email the webmaster for a link exchange. In most cases, the webmaster will be happy to exchange links with you. Another way for you to get good inbound links is to make posts on either forums or blogs. Most of these sites will allow you to add your website’s link to your signature, and those who read your posts can click on the link and be taken to your homepage. Both of the methods discussed in this paragraph are free strategies that you can use to build inbound links. However, there are a number of payment options can use to further enhance your inbound links.

One of the most common techniques is to buy a text link on a page with high PR. While some have argued that Google frowns on this, it is a common way to build up traffic. After all, if a text link to your site is clearly visible on a PR 7 page, it is very likely that you will receive large amounts of traffic from this link. It is for this reason that many webmasters are willing to pay more than $50 per month just to have their link on a page with high PR. It will increase both their page rank and their traffic. Page rank is another thing that you can increase by getting high quality inbound links. Page rank is the number Google will use to measure your site.

The lowest page rank is 0, and the highest is 10. Every brand new website will start out with a page rank of 0. While it is possible to increase the page rank to 10, only a few websites ever get this high. However, the higher your page rank, the more value you will have with the search engines. The best way to increase your page rank is to get a large number of quality inbound links. The rank of the page linked to your webpage will determine its page rank.

Crafting Good Title Tags For SEO And Clickability August 17, 2010

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It’s amazing to me, the number of people who still do not take proper advantage of the power of the title tag. The title tag, is arguably THE most important on-page factor in SEO (and much more as you’ll soon learn).

If you happen not to be too versed in HTML coding I’ll explain what the title tag is.

The title tag is found within the and tags of a webpage. It’s format is as follows:

Your Page Title Here

The title tag is important for two very simple reasons.

1) The title of the page is given an enormous amount of weight by the search engines. It always has and it always will. It’s of less importance today than it was 6 or 7 years ago, but it is still the most important on-the-page factor a page has. After all, it’s sole purpose is to describe the page so it *should* be considered important.

2) The title tag is also used as the anchor text of your listing in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). When someone visits a search engine and runs a search for one of your products, if one of your pages comes up in that search, it is the title tag that the visitor will see (along with a short description) and be able to click on to visit that page.

The problem is a LOT of webmaster’s simply don’t understand or make proper use of the title tag. Instead of name the page using keywords relevant to that specific page, they use their company name, etc.

Unless you are FORD, GE, or some other multi-million dollar company you should NEVER have your company name or website name (unless it’s an SEO’ed website name) in the title tag. Are people going to be searching for your company or website name or are they going to be searching for keywords related to your product or service?

Let’s look at a quick example from a real search I ran earlier today:

So a ran a search for “lawn chairs” clicked to page number two and there sitting at #14 is a site with the title “Brookbend”.

Now, this particular site actually has a LOT wrong with it, but for now we’ll stick to the title tag, or lack-there-of as this particular site’s title tag actually just said “Untitled Document”. As a result, Google replaced that with the name from the URL which Google will often do when a webmaster does something stupid such as this. ;)

As I said, this particular listing was the 14th listing for “lawn chairs”. That is actually VERY good considering it doesn’t have a title tag. Imagine what it could have ranked if it had actually made use of the title tag? Possible using something along the lines of:

*Beautiful Outdoor Furniture, Lawn Chairs, Patio Tables*

Think they may have been able to achieve an even better rank? I would venture to say yes.

Now, there is also a second problem with their lack of a title tag and that is that their listing in the search engine is simply “Brookbend”. I don’t know about you, but if I’m looking for “lawn chairs” I’m probably not going to click on a listing that just says “Brookbend”. For one reason, it doesn’t contain either of the search terms I used in the title. For another thing, it isn’t very “clickable”.

You see, a title tag should do two things. It should incorporate that pages most important phrases and it should make someone want to click on it. You will notice in my above example, for the title I used “Beautiful Outdoor Furniture…”. That is because, while I wanted the keywords in there, I also wanted it to read well and entice the surfer to click on it. After all, it doesn’t do much good to get a top ranking if no one clicks on your listing.

So, when you are designing your pages always remember to:

1) Decide on what that pages target keywords are

2) Incorporate those keywords into the title tag of the page

3) Make sure the title tag is enticing enough to make the visitor WANT to click on it.

Do the above three consistently and you will see the results in no time.

See you at the top!

SEO Tips For New Webmasters August 10, 2010

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We decided to make a quick list of SEO Tips for new webmasters or website owners to help eliminate all the confusion and outrageous claims of secrets and backdoor methods. Make no mistake about it, there are what are termed “blackhat” SEO techniques. But they rarely provide any long term value since they are quickly found and eliminated by the search engines, and punishment is swift.

A lot of people want to make search engine optimization appear to be highly technical and secretive. If you go to any of the popular search engines information pages, they give you the basic guidelines and even provide some good ways to check your website for potential problems. There are no secrets, the exact method search engines use to rank and index pages is proprietary to protect against people who would use that information to corrupt the integrity of the search results.

So to cut through some of the long and less than exciting information available on SEO, we compiled a simple list of necessary procedures to follow when creating any new website page. Which brings up another issue that may be misunderstood. Search engines rank website pages, not the entire website. Each website page stands on it’s own in being ranked and indexed.

SEO can be split into two areas. One is on page, which deals with how you present and format any information. The other is off page, which deals with links that point to your website pages. Another key point is not to sacrifice user-friendly aspects for SEO methods. The visitor experience should always be considered when trying to create a search engine friendly website page.

SEO on page factors are:

Meta Tags – Your title, description, keywords, should match the content. Using your keyword phrases in each in a logical and accurate manner for both search engines and vistors is important.

File Names – The page file name, graphics alt text, and any associated files should be named using the keyword phrases or related terms as they apply.

Theme – Keyword phrases should be used in natural way a long with associated and related terms. Don’t over do the keyword phrase (called “stuffing” keywords), use where necessary but don’t over use. Use H1-H6 HTML tags to indicate important titles (H1 being the most important, H6 being the least). You can also use other font attributes to indicate importance like bold, italics, or even colors.

Navigation – All navigation links should use descriptive anchor text to make it easy for both the search engines and the visitors to understand the content. If you use pull down menu graphics as element of design, make sure you also include anchor text equivalents somewhere on the website page.

SEO off page factors:

Links – Off page SEO is primarily all about links to your website page from other website pages. The authority or what Google calls Pagerank, is a point of consideration, since Pagerank can flow downwards to your website page (i.e. a Pagerank is between 1-10, the higher the number the more value). The perfect link, if there is one, would be from a high Pagerank website page of similar or like content that uses anchor text that accurately describes the content of the page being linked too.

There are many opinions on the amount of Pagerank that flows down, the weighting of the content, and the accuracy of the anchor text. Your best bet is to go with the basics of all three and be done with it.

Too many new webmasters get caught up in all the nuances and details of every specific aspect of off and on page SEO. You can easily drive yourself crazy with all the different opinions and the latest tricks or trends. The search engines constantly update the mathematical algorithms they use to rank and index website pages. The search engine’s goal is to produce the most accurate search results and to eliminate any attempts at beating the system.

The best SEO tip I can give is to follow the search engine guidelines, provide high value content, and always keep the visitor in mind while doing any SEO. Once a visitor arrives, you need to make sure that the information you present does its intended job, whatever that might involve. If direct sales, convert them to a buyer. Or maybe sign up for your newsletter, or additional information.

Getting tightly targeted search engine traffic is great, but always keep the visitor experience in mind when doing search engine optimization. Try not to get lost in the weeds and forget the main purpose of your website, whatever your goals. Sometimes the best SEO tips for new webmasters are to keep it simple and effective for both the search engines and the website page visitors.