Posts Tagged ‘Search Engines’

Website SEO: Search engine submission, step 4

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
By this point you should have thought about your product, engaged into keyword research, and implemented SEO changes on your pages. Let's now look at what you need to do to let search engines know that your site is out there.

Website submission to search engines is no longer as critical as it used to be for one reason: the only engines you need to submit are Google, Bing and Yahoo! (and very soon it's going to be just Google and Bing). And those engines have spiders that will visit your site if a currently indexed site is linking to one of your pages. However, there's a few things to keep in mind to simplify life for search crawlers and speed up your indexation.

First, you will need to prepare your website for search engine submission. It's very simple. You need to ensure that you have a sitemap.xml file in your root directory (i.e. domain.com/sitemap.xml). The sitemap.xml will tell crawlers the structure of your site in a language crawlers understand.
  • Let's create the sitemap.xml  file using one of a great free XML sitemap services. Please note that this tool is deal for smaller sites. Large sites with 1000s of pages will need to pay for the services.
  • Once you got the sitemap generated, just drop it into your root directory. Once done, just check the result to make sure. Your sitemap (for search engines) should now be here: domain.com/sitemap.xml.
If you can drop the files into root directory you should be able to tweak pages as well. You will need this when verifying your website submission with search engines. You can do it one of two ways: insert a line of code inside <head></head> or drop a file into the root directory of your site (much like you did with sitemap.xml).

Second, once you have the sitemap.xml, it's the time to let the search engines know who you are. Each of the major search engines has a Webmaster Central. That's where webmasters talk to search engines. It's a great idea to create an account with Google, Yahoo! and Bing so that you have access to their Webmaster areas. Submission process is pretty much the same for all 3 engines. Let's take a look.
  • Google Webmaster Central: Google calls it a one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help with your crawling and indexing questions, see keyword usage and traffic information relevant to your site. Once you get in, find the button "Add a site", follow instructions. One separate step I recommend is submitting a sitemap. You can find the submission button inside "Site configuration > Sitemaps".
  • Yahoo! Site Explorer: Does pretty much the same thing as Google. Click on "Submit your site" and follow the instructions. Again, submitting a sitemap.xml is a separate step that I recommend.
  • Bing Toolbox: Yet another version of a webmaster central. Looks slightly different, especially after a recent update, but the purpose is the same and functionality is similar.
Again, submitting sitemaps, registering with search engines is not necessary. Search engines will come on their own (if somebody that's indexed links back to you). However, based on my experience, submitting sitemap.xml helps to speed up the process, and helps you get on the same page (speak the same language) with search engines. Additionally, there's a plenty of intelligence you can pick up from those webmaster tools about your website performance in search engines.

Thanks for sticking around for this one. The next step is about setting up analytics and creating a baseline report. This will help measure your SEO results in the following months.
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Website SEO: Implementation, step 3

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Now that you have all your pages in the SEO implementation sheet, let's look at a few critical implementation components. This article is for you if you plan to implement things on your own. If you have a developer that can do it for you, it's enough to just pass him / her the implementation sheet.

SEO friendly URLs

A few notes here. It's been popular to keyword stuff your site folders, sub-folders and page names. As with all popular things, Google recognizes that site URLs get abused and may not like keyword stuffing. So, stay away from deep pages (more than 3 levels deep), because 2-3 levels are more than enough for most small business websites.
  • Bad example: domain.com/search-engine-optimization-calgary/seo-services/link-building-calgary/link-building.html
  • Good example: domain.com/services/seo.html
  • Often ideal: domain.com/seo.html
As of recently, I've become a fan of shorter, but more specific page names, titles, URLs.

SEO optimized titles

Although a generally accepted length of titles is around 64 to 75 characters (including spaces), it's not always ideal. Shorter titles mean that each word inside the title has more weight. Here's an example that I hope helps illustrate the point.
  • Bad example: Web Design Los Angeles, SEO, Internet Marketing, Calgary, Canada, Advertising Agency "company name", Award Winning (because runs over length limit, cuts at "Canada").
  • Better example: Search Engine Optimization | Social Media Consulting Calgary SEO (because right at the length limit, but still appears a bit stuffed, and a bit confusing to search engine ("is the page about SEO or SMM?")).
  • Best example: SEO Services Calgary by "your company name" (because this makes it clear to a search engine that the company offers SEO services in Calgary region) .
Disclaimer: These example are taken from real searches. I do not intent to pick on these. I used these titles to illustrate the point. Also, my best example is a bit idealistic because sites with shorter titles are not in top 3 results. However, I honestly believe that things are  going that way.

Update: as I keep seeing sites with only a homepage title (the rest is missing), I wanted to once again remind that you need to have titles for all your pages. This helps Google and other engines do the right thing when ranking your site. Also, make sure your titles are not identical across the whole site. Each page should have its own title.

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions, that is, are n0t there for keyword stuffing. The role of a description tag inside meta is to be descriptive to a human. The reason is that, if you have content inside description tag, Google picks it to display in the search snippet. Here's more on Google search snippets from Matt Cutts. As a result, make your descriptions:
  • between 120 to 150 characters (including spaces)
  • ensure that your description is understood by a human
  • ensure that it's descriptive enough that a person understands what to expect on the page
  • feel free to mention your focus keyword once

Headings (h1, h2, h3, etc.)

H1 is the second most important element of the on-page optimization (after the title). Here's a few rules I follow and it's been working for me and my clients:
  • make sure it contains your focus key phrase
  • make sure it's written in a human language (not for search engines)
  • in terms of formatting, make sure the font stands out, so people know what the page is about at a first glance
  • avoid long running H1's, 4-5 words is enough most of the time

Internal / external links

Links are super important for two reasons: proper external links increase the authority of your pages, and well developed internal links help Google crawl your pages. Good links make life more beautiful for both people and search engine spiders. Here's a few recommendations on links:
  • Don't even bother with "nofollow" tags. It used to help manage "Google juice" flowing to and away from your site, but not any more. Creating proper "anchors" and giving a link a destination URL is more than enough. Read more on SEO and Nofollow tag in one of my past posts.
  • Anchors are super important. "SEO and Nofollow" in the previous point is an anchor, it's a text that links out to another page. Make sure your anchors contain your focus keywords, especially for internal pages. For example, if you have a page explaining your SEO Services, the anchor should be "SEO Services". Just call things their real names, don't keyword-stuff, and you'll be fine.
  • A bit on external links. It's ok to links out to external sites. Do not worry, you will not loose Google juice. In fact, linking out to relevant websites with proper anchor tags makes life simpler for both people and search engine crawlers.

Alts for your images

As you've probably noticed, I don't have a lot of imagery on my site. There's a couple of reasons for it: 1) images make site slower to load (as opposed to no images), 2) it's an art to select the right image for the right things, and I believe that irrelevant images just eat up space. Having said that, I'm not against pictures on websites. If done right, images can significantly increase the appeal, conversions and revenues. So, go ahead and use images you like but just make sure your images are size-optimized (the lighter the weight the better, but make sure the quality is still there too), and ensure that alt attributes are:
  • descriptive of the image (so that blind people or those with blocked images can see what the picture is about)
  • contain one mention of your focus key phrase (a 2-3 word key phrase that you use to optimize this particular page)
  • not keyword-stuffed (4-5 words to explain the image is usually enough)
I hope this all makes sense. If not, please write a comment. Feel free to bookmark and share the article so that you can use it as reference when  you're working on your pages. Here's a little bonus, an article I enjoyed, that will give you a bit more ideas on quicker time to top 10 results in Google. Take a look at other SEO steps when launching a new sites. And stay tuned for articles on the next steps: search engine submissions.
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Online marketing, SEO and launching a new website

Monday, July 19th, 2010
A friend of mine, Ernest Barbaric, (Congratulations, Ernest!) has just re-launched a website and asked me about tools he should use and steps he should take to tweak up the new site. We had a conversation with a few messages back and forth. This series of posts is a result of that conversation. Here are a few things to keep in mind when approaching SEO for a new / re-designed website. These are general steps that I've tried, tested, improved. Please note that this is a general process, and I will go into specifics of each step in future posts.

Think about your product, step 1

The key in search engine optimization is simple: think about it. Think about your product and how people could refer to it. Brainstorm a few combinations. Ask friends, colleagues, clients, partners, vendors. As a result you'll come up with a list of 5-10 key phrases. SEO Tools: paper & pencil, or white board and a marker. Some of you may want to start a spreadsheet. It may be useful down the road.

Keyword research, step 2

Once you have a list of those approximate terms it's time to look at what people are actually searching for. Use tools that are usually provided by major search engines themselves for free. First, test the terms that you've brainstormed to see if people are searching for those. Look at other keyword phrases recommended by the tools. The goals here are to 1) select the most relevant terms, 2) select the term with existing search volume, 3) stay away from super competitive keywords. Then shorten you list of terms to 3-5 most relevant to your site. These terms and their variations (for long tail terms) will be used further. Here's a great review of 20 free keyword research tools.

SEO Implementation, step 3

There's a few things to keep in mind: have one terms for the entire site, and 3-4 other terms for other pages on your site. Focus on optimizing one terms per page. For example, if you sell natural cosmetics in Calgary, then this should be your title for either the homepage or one of your other pages. Some of the tools your can use to analyze on-page components of your website: Website SEO Analyzer, W3Optimizer, Website Grader.

Search engine submission, step 4

Yes, search engine spiders crawl the web and will eventually get to your site. I like to inform search engines about major changes on my sites as changes happen. I use webmaster tools that each of major search engines have (Google, Yahoo, Bing). Have an XML sitemap ready just in case (not super crucial but desirable). Here are webmaster pages for major search engines: Google Webmaster Central, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Bing Webmaster Center.

Baseline performance snapshot, step 5

This is one of the most important step of all. This snapshot is a starting point from which you will track your progress. There are a few free tools that will allow you to take performance snapshots and measure it over time including: WebCEO, Raven Tools, etc.

Link building, step 6

Can't stress this enough. Links are super important. But don't fall into a trap of doing a one-time blast and forgetting about it. The process should be continuous. The links should be one way from resources that are relevant to your industry. The idea is that other people consider your site important and link to you. You can check the sites that link back to you using the follow two tools: Open Site Explorer by SEOmoz and Yahoo! Site Explorer.

SEO maintenance, step 7

SEO is not a one-time engagement. Search engines change their algorithms, people change their search habits, the world changes. So, make a habit of checking on results regularly (once or twice a month). Either leave as is and continue link building. Or tweak your titles to add / remove / change target keywords. This outlines the process in general. Stay tuned for a a detailed article on each of the steps.
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Linkedin.com: How this professional business network helped me

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me questions about linkedin.com and how I benefited by using it so far. I have been meaning to respond to her questions but didn't have a chance to do it. Now, I realized that this information may be useful for other people too, hence I'm sharing it here. Below is an overview of a few useful features on linkedin.com that I've benefited by since I first started using it.
  1. One place for your resume
  2. To connect with colleagues, past and present
  3. To discover new connections
  4. To join groups of similar interests
  5. To help people solve problems
  6. To stay up to date with your network
  7. To recommend and get recommended
  8. To look for jobs and apply for jobs
  9. Search visibility and personal branding
Facts from Guy Kawasaki on the subject:
  • People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.
  • The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes.
  • All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees.
  • The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven.
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Posted in Personal Branding | 2 Comments »