Archive for the ‘Website Strategies’ Category
No-Cost SEO Tools to Help You Increase Your Website Traffic
By Henrie Media Inc. | June 3, 2008
The right SEO tools can work wonders for your search strategy. You can save time, effort and investment, not to mention improve your rankings. A big thank you to Marketing Sherpa for providing the background for each of these.
Google Advanced Search
Cost: Free
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
Description: This tool can be found by going to Google, clicking “Advanced Search” and then clicking the “+” symbol next to “Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more.” Now you should see a field titled “Where your keywords show up.”
This lets you limit a search to:
o Anywhere in the page
o Title of the page
o Text of the page
o URL of the page
o Links to the page
The big one is “links to the page.” By selecting this option and searching for your competitors, you can find which sites are linking to them. You can also limit the search by date to uncover the links that have been created most recently.
Google Trends
http://google.com/trends
Cost: Free
Description: Google Trends reveals keywords’ historic search volume on Google (but not the exact figures). Say you’re torn between two keywords. Type them into the text box, separate them with commas and click to see which has received the most search traffic over time. The data dates back years and is illustrated with graphs.
Use the tool to:
Decide on a keyword, i.e., should you go with singular or plural?
Search engines return different results for singular and plural forms of a noun. So, a tractor manufacturer might rank well for the term “tractor” but not for “tractors.”
Rank Checker
http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/
Cost: Free
Description: Rank Checker is a Firefox plug-in that takes keywords and reports your rankings on:
o Google
o Yahoo!
o MSN
o Google in other countries
If you check your rankings by typing in search engines and sift through results, stop now. This tool automates that process.
SeoQuake
http://www.seoquake.com/
Cost: Free
Description: SeoQuake is a Firefox plug-in that’s great for researching your search competition. It can resort search results based on a range of factors, including:
o Number of Web pages
o Number of links from Yahoo!
o Number of links from MSN
o Alexa rank
o Domain age
o Links from del.icio.us
Today’s Hot Trends
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X
Cost: Free
Description: Another Google Trends feature is Today’s Hot Trends. You can access it by clicking “More Hot Trends” on the Google Trends homepage. “It’s been talked about for a while, but I don’t think a lot of people are using it,” Reynolds says.
Today’s Hot Trends is updated every hour and shows the top 100 fastest-rising search terms on Google.
Yahoo! Search Assist
http://www.yahoo.com/
Cost: Free
Description: When you’re using the search box in Yahoo!, you might notice a gray textbox of terms that appears when you start typing a phrase. The words in the box are Yahoo!’s suggestions for related keywords, loosely based on word content and search volume.
The difference between this tool and many others is the fact that Yahoo!’s suggestions are not based on character order alone. For example, typing “bug” into some tools will only return keywords that begin with “b-u-g” like “buggy” or “bugs.” Yahoo!, on the other hand, returns “fashion bug,” “bugs bunny” and “bed bugs.”
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Topics: SEO Tools, Website Strategies | 1 Comment »
Search Engine Spider Simulator
By Henrie Media Inc. | May 29, 2008
Sometimes you put a lot of work into your website and then find out that the search engines can’t see the content (i.e. Flash). The problem usually occurs because everything rendered on the client-side may not be visible to search engines (i.e. JavaScript).
This tool simulates the search engines spider by displaying the contents of a web page exactly how a search engine spider would see it. Give it try!
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Topics: SEO Tools, Spiders, Website Strategies | No Comments »
Bookmark this page JavaScript
By Henrie Media Inc. | May 27, 2008
Here is a handy “Bookmark this page” JavaScript I wrote that will work in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and most of the major web browser. The script will prompt the user to bookmark the page they are on. Here is what you need to use this script on your website.
Put the following code between the <head></head> tags of your webpage -
<script>
function bookmark(title,url){
if(window.sidebar)
window.sidebar.addPanel(title,url,”");
else if(window.opera && window.print){
var elem = document.createElement(’a');
elem.setAttribute(’href’,url);
elem.setAttribute(’title’,title);
elem.setAttribute(’rel’,’sidebar’);
elem.click();
}
else if(window.external)
window.external.AddFavorite(url,title);}
</script>
Put the following script in your Bookmark this page link (this can be a text or image link) -
<a href=”javascript:bookmark(’Henrie Media Inc.’,’http://www.henriemedia/’);”>Bookmark this page</a>
Make sure you change the parameters (’title’, ‘url’) to the ‘url’ you want to bookmark and the ‘title’ you want the bookmark to say. In my example the ‘url’ is “http://www.Henriemedia.com” and the ‘title’ is “Henrie Media Inc.”
That’s it! Your are off and bookmarking. Please leave a comment if you find this post to be helpful.
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Topics: Code Library, Link Analysis, Technical Support | 3 Comments »
32 Search Engine Optimization Tips
By Henrie Media Inc. | May 23, 2008
- Repeat information throughout your page. Make sure your title tag, meta content, headers, and content all match up.
- Have a strong text to code ratio. If 95% of your page is made up of code the search engines are going to have a harder time reading the content.
- Add keywords to your page names. A page with the name of purina_dog_treats.html is more likely to boost search results than treats.html.
- Bold keywords in your content. Many search engines give more relevance to bolded terms.
- Don’t create a Flash website. Maybe someday in the future search engines will be able to make sense of Flash, but for now, you won’t get ranked under more than one page if you build your entire site in Flash.
- Promote your website on blogs, forums, and other websites you webmaster. Backlinks are important for seo, but traffic can be too. If your link is in a relevant place and it draws a steady stream of traffic, search engines will give it more relevance.
- Make sure you use your keywords in your alt tags. But avoid keyword stuffing.
- Practice only ethical seo. Unethical seo practices could get your site banned from Google.
- Use <h1>, <h2> etc. in your headers. Search engines place more relevance on header tags.
- More content is typically better. A page with more content will have a better text to code ratio meaning the search engines won’t have to wade through as much code. This also allows for more opportunities to use your relevant keywords.
- Make sure to research your keywords. Choosing keywords that merely represent the company or services your website offers isn’t always the best route to take. Instead, look for relevant search strings and alter your content to reflect what is actually being searched. For example, if your company sells all sorts of posters and frames, but gold framed posters are getting a high search volume, target those keywords instead of being general.
- Put some thought into your description meta. This is the text that people will typically see on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). If the description is not enticing or relevant, users will not click.
- Track which pages get hits and find out what is working. Using software like Visitorville lets you see very detailed statistics about which pages are getting hit and what site directed them there. If you are getting a lot of traffic from a certain keyword, considering writing more content for that term.
- Avoid using text colors that are similar to their background colors. Google may interpret your text as being cloaked- meaning a possibility that you will be taken off of their list. Contrasting text is not only search engine friendly, you will be doing a service to your readers.
- Move away from tables in your designs. Tables create code bloat which makes it more difficult for search engines to find the relevant content on your page. Use css positioning whenever possible.
- Install Firefox developer toolbar and poke around competitor sites that have high ranking. If you want to compete with the big companies, find out what they’re doing right and try to emulate them. Seo techniques aren’t copyrighted.
- Pay a blogger to review your website.Not only will you get backlinked, you may also generate some decent traffic.
- Target appropriate backlinks. Quality backlinks are great for your site’s organic relevance and will also drive traffic.
- Create a facebook, myspace or moli page for your site. All of these are indexed by Google.
- Add keywords to your image names. Sometimes people will find your site on a Google images search. Image names will also be read by search engines and give the page more relevance.
- Create a text document called robots.txt in the site root.
- A frequently updated sitemap is vital. Whether you use an xml or html sitemap, it’s important that search engines can easily find every page that you want indexed. Make sure to update the sitemap every time you add a new page.
- Create a 404 page. In some cases you will have to fight against Internet Explorer which likes to hijack your 404 functionality, so Google a tutorial if you’re having trouble. 404 pages are an excellent way to capture any misspelled links or broken anchors that would anger your users and throw off search engines.
- Use external styles and javascript.Don’t clutter your page with in-line styles or heavy handed javascript statements. This is more code that search engines have to wade through to get to your content.
- Don’t add too many conditions to dynamic urls. A url of only one or two conditions will do much better on the SERPs than a url with 5 conditions (all other things being equal).
- Rewrite dynamic urls if possible. It’s an advanced technique- but if you have access to a knowledgeable developer it is advantageous to rewrite dynamic urls to contain keywords from the page content.
- Submit your site to DMOZ. But don’t hold your breath. DMOZ chooses which sites they want to add to their directory- and the waiting list is typically very long. It’s worth it to submit to their list- but definitely not essential.
- Clean up your code. Programs like Visual Studio and Dreamweaver allow you to automatically clean up your code for readability. This will help you trim the fat and eliminate as much code as possible.
- Don’t duplicate content in your site. Search engines are looking for unique content that can only be found on any given page. If you duplicate large portions of content from one page to another you will be creating competition within your own site for top ranking on the SERPs.
- Write a blog. Many webmasters, seo specialists, etc. have created blogs that they update 2-3 times a week. The more popular the blog gets, the more value the backlinks you’ve created will be to the search engines.
- Create a Youtube channel. If you don’t have video content relating to your website, buy a webcam and start filming some. Even if your videos are only moderately successful, they can provide a fair amount of regular traffic to your site- as well as provide backlinks.
- Create microsites.Many companies have created microsites that have gimmicks in them such as flash games- and backlinked to their main website. This not only produced more interest in the company services and products, but improved seo results.
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Topics: Website Strategies | 1 Comment »
Link Popularity
By Henrie Media Inc. | May 16, 2008
What is link Popularity? Link popularity is a general representation of the total number of web pages which link to a website (or individual web page). Most of the major search engines support the “link:” operator. Type in “link:” (without the quotation marks) in front of the URL about which you want to learn.
What does this tool do? This tool will query all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) when you enter the “link:” operator with your chosen URL. It will return the total link count for each URL.
Why is link popularity important? Link popularity is important because it is a major factor used by search engines in determining a site’s position in search results. Generally, a site with more inbound links will be positioned higher than a similar site with fewer links. Other factors that are considered include anchor text.
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Topics: Link Analysis, SEO Tools, Website Strategies | No Comments »
Site Link Analyzer
By Henrie Media Inc. | May 16, 2008
Keeping track of links is an important pastime, and it just got easier than ever. Examine any webpage’s outbound links (or its internal ones) by using the Site Link Analyzer tool.
The tool only requires that you enter an address, decide which type of links you’d like to learn about, and make the same choice regarding nofollow attributes. It’ll then return relevant links’ URLs and anchor text, effectively giving you all the link-related figures a person could want. Use this time-saver to your advantage and optimize your online campaign.
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Topics: Link Analysis, SEO Tools | No Comments »
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