Do not fall into the encumbered keyword trap by writing titles like "Cheap PCs, Low budget PCs and Macs, affordable PCs and Macs, Best PCs and hardware, PC computer deals......" On many sites, that just goes on and on. Anyhow, this is known as keyword stuffing and Yahoo and Google will show their wrath by possibly banning the site from their search engines. It will be a horrifyingly repetitive article if the word computer or phone appears every 4 or 5 words. Just stay within that recommended percentage, be mindful of the frequency applied to the keywords, and ensure that they are distributed evenly through the text.
3. Reports that Cannot be Backed up with Evidence - You've heard about it and probably experienced it for yourself when an SEO firm shows you their results for other clients with top ten SERPs (search engine results pages). It is necessary for you to be able to have a link to view them yourself, or that the company can provide specific, preferably dated, evidence of their magic. Screenshots are great, but they don't make a lot of sense when there is no corroboration of those events. Further, if you are being told that your site is falling in the SERPs due to this or that factor, the SEO firm should be able to provide evidence why this is the case.
When writing, plan the content carefully against the keywords and write the phrases carefully, taking account of the frequency for SEO purposes. Ensure that page titles, headings and sub-headings contain those keywords. Don't go overboard though. Do not overload the title with keyword repetition. The search engines will only read part of the title, approximately 50 or 60 characters, so there is no need to write a title like "Computers at low computer prices and best PC deals on all PC brands at low budget PC prices." This is the page title in the tags and it should be treated with care. Save the long phrases for the meta tags, which will be covered shortly.
4. Possible Futuristic Events or Predictions - There is absolutely no one that can predict what a search engine may or may not do, and as a result there is not an SEO firm in the world that can make predictions about how your site will do in a search engine. This is a sticky subject because it gets into the area of guaranteed results. I've seen countless firms out there that offer Top Ten results guarantees, or number one results. I shake my head every single time.
On the subject of the use of keywords, it is time for the next all important task: writing content. If writing content is something that consumes too much time, and more time needs to be spent marketing the business, there are free sites where you can obtain content. Articles are available for free and also for just a few dollars an article.
I had a prospective client just recently for whom I did an analysis. They were a small company started by two programmers who had a travel industry website, which was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, the travel industry is the #2 most sought after industry in regards to keywords on the Internet, and while they were happy with the results of the analysis, we couldn't seem to agree on the SEO work itself. The reason was that they were looking for guarantees for very broad keywords. I am very careful in this area, because while I can guarantee a certain percentage increase in traffic or SERPs positioning, recommend appropriate keywords for particular pages or suggest content choices, they wanted pay per performance based on which keywords hit the Top Ten in Google; the keywords were so broad that you could drive a truck through the hole they created.
Tip 2: Keyword Density
As briefly mentioned above, careful placement of keywords relating to the text or sub-text is required for a search engine optimized site. Look at the theme of the site and choose popular keywords that are used by people to find the site information on search engines. As content is written for the site, be very conscious of the amount of keywords used in the text. This is known as keyword density; it is calculated by dividing the number of number of instances of the word by the total number of words in the text, and multiplying by 100. That percentage should be around the 15 - 20% mark for the top three keywords. It will be too repetitive if it rises above that.
Needless to say, I declined to submit the offer with a guarantee, and I'm sure that since I didn't hear from them again, they chose the other guy. That's okay, because there is no way I can predict a Top Ten result for that kind of broad keyword. No one can. I'd rather not set myself up for disaster, and not getting paid!
Maintain the balance between graphics and content. Ensure that there is not an overload of graphical imagery splattered across the pages even if it is an artistically driven site like a gallery. The content and its ability to grab the interest of the visitor must be paramount. The quality of the content is what is required for optimized results on the web. This does not entail refusing to use graphics altogether. It simply means that a balance between content and graphics should be applied to avoid badly cluttered pages. Ensure that the images have attributes with relevant text inserted. For example, if it is a site showing pictures of computers for a vendor, the tag text could be "Brand new PCs at low prices." This in turn will further aid search engine page rankings.
5. General and Vague Findings - Stating the obvious is mercilessly painful in any industry, but it truly applies to SEO. You cannot properly do research for a website with broad parameters resulting in broad results. Each and every website out there is as unique as the individual or individuals that created it. Every SEO analysis, just like every SEO project, should be customized and geared toward that company's specific needs at this very moment in time. Examples of vague findings would be "You're not in the top ten results for this keyword." Well, DUH! They wouldn't be looking for an SEO analysis if they were. If an SEO company dumbs down a report because they think you can't handle the findings, then run away twice, you silly person.
Web sites that employ well-written keyword targeted content will also be crawled effectively by the search engines. For example, a site selling mobile phones could host articles on the latest mobile technologies and brand reviews. It is no longer necessary to submit site addresses to Yahoo or Google. Given time, not too long either, the search engines will find the site quite easily by crawling using search algorithms.
The SEO Analysis: What it is and Why You Need it - Tools for DIY Analysis
It's difficult to imagine trying to do all of the above mentioned things manually, especially if you are a do-it-yourself type of person. In fact, it would be ridiculous to try to do some of them that way, like current search engine rankings. This is why SEOs use tools, and many of these tools are free. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
How can a visitor come to your website?
Simply by clicking your website link – what matters from where? No one can predict the customer.
Even from major search engines point of view, if you have higher no. of relevant links pointing to your website, then you can win on search engines with your targeting keywords and key phrases. That’s why it is concluded that its all about Links - your own website links which is to be popular to achieve ranking on search engine listing. There are a bunch of recommended tools that we use that don't cost you anything; in fact, many of them are here on SEO Chat. If you've never checked out our SEO Tools section, you may want to do it now. You'll be able to use them to keep on top of your search engine optimization yourself, or even recommend these tools to your webmaster or designer if you don't have time.
Content needs to be keyword-targeted, with keywords used by web surfers to find the information on the site using search engines. The search engine optimized content makes the difference between those who find the site and those who go elsewhere. Of course, there are other marketing methods for bringing traffic to a site, but by optimizing the keywords, targeted traffic from search engines is much more likely.
You will also need a great stats program for your website. Many web hosts include some kind of free statistics program with your hosting package, whether it be AWStats, Analog, or Webalizer. There are a few things you need to be able to see in your stats in order for them to be useful at all. You need to know more than just how many hits you are getting to a web page. You need to know the numbers of unique visitors, repeat visitors, exit and entry pages, and much more. For more information on you website statistics, read my series on web stats here on SEO Chat.
Tip 1: Write Effective Content
There is nothing worse for a web site than badly written or poorly researched content. Content must be useful for the web site's target audience or they will simply go elsewhere, never to return. It must be relevant to the subject matter covered by the site. That does not mean just advertising products and services. The site should contain articles related to the site theme.
You'll want to sign up for a Google API so that you can have access to many search engine results in one setting. You can get your free API key here. You'll also want to find a web program or website tool that will help you see where you site is in Yahoo and MSN SERPs as well.
20.SEO Tips to Avoid Critical Mistakes
This article outlines three tips to help the budding web site marketing guru avoid some of the horrific and damaging SEO mistakes made by so many web designers. If care is taken to develop a good SEO plan at the outset, much pain is saved later.
A bad SEO plan can result in expensive redesigning and at the worst end, scrapping the site altogether. There are great methods for optimizing web sites for search engines and there are also really bad ones.
Before delving into the subject, there is a tool called Web CEO which is a free download. It is absolutely great at helping the designer optimize any site for SEO purposes.
You'll need to check for site navigation, crawlability, broken links, and dead ends in your website, just to name a few. If a search engine spider can't crawl your site, you'll want to know why. Just do a search for free or commercial programs that can do these things. We also offer a few of these things on our own site, FirstClass-SEO. (You will need to sign up as a member to access these tools.)
If you put all these points into practice, you'll soon have a well-tuned web site that delivers an excellent return on investment. And a nice ROI is enough to make any site owner purr like a brand-new Ferrari. Good luck!
The very first step in great SEO work is the analysis; it is also useful continuously throughout the optimization process, and you cannot do well without it. If you want to perform the analysis yourself, then go for it. Self analysis is sometimes the best thing you can do for your own website, because no one knows your website like you do. If you can't do it, then you may look for a free analysis, but there's a very good chance that you may have to pay for one to get the results you can actually use.
My last two notes are so basic in a way that I'm almost surprised they're necessary. As far as most visitors and search engines are concerned, web sites are about content. Therefore, you should make sure you have content in all the important places, like your home page. Search engines like to see at least 250 words here. It stands to reason that the home page will tell your visitors what your site is all about, so you should pay special attention here. We can’t apply a single regular SEO technique for a travel website because we got several packages related to different places and to different targeted peoples rather than having a single targeted keyword or place. Every page has its own demand with the different offers or services. It requires highly specialized search engine marketing strategies that differ from those used for static travel sites. There should be a strategic SEO approach from the web design to web promotion in travel website. Content on website should be specific and interesting to visitors helping to makeup their minds to visit that particular destination offered in a travel plan. And my second point? I've barely touched on it in this article, but we have many articles devoted strictly to this topic: link building. That's really part of "Being Seen," both by the search engines and web surfers. Don't assume you can work on building incoming links to your web site once and be done with it; link building is an ongoing process.
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