See Ya at What Gets Me Hot: SEO S.O.S.

Domain Names and URLs with SEO In Mind

In regard to domain names - your site's registered name could help boost your search engine rankings, if it strategically matches the theme of your site: Having the actual keyword(s) in your domain name will help highlight your site in a search result. Search engines like Google will bold words within URLs, if they were a part of someone's search query. For example, go to Google and search for "apple," and note how the link for "www.apple.com" has the word "apple" displayed in bold. It simply helps one's eye catch a URL name while skimming a results page. Although this may not sound like much, it may help pull in curious clicks.Search engines don't discriminate against dashes within URLs in most cases. For instance, "my-site" and "my site" are identical in the eyes of a search engine. The less favorable underscore, "my_site" is also a part of that group. Both the dash and the underscore are converted to a space as a search engine spider reads them. (therefore, "my-site" is not equal to "mysite", but it is equal to "my site").Having a site name that is extremely relevant to what your site is about is a definite strength. For instance, if your site is about "tables" and your website name is "buytables.com," you have a major advantage.When it comes to the rest of your URL, make sure its search engine friendly. For instance, a URL like "Mysite.com/11/bin/ap1d7kfx/1.php" will have a difficult time being read by search engines, whereas "Mysite.com/products/tables/antique-oak-tables.php" will have the obvious advantage. This is an incredibly big problem for sites that utilize dynamic URLS (URLs that are generated by a web site, that are called forth from a database).Domain hacks are a fun way to create a variety of new URLs, although there is practically no SEO benefits from them. The most famous domain hack is "del.icio.us." It involves registering a partial domain name (in that case, icio.us) and appending a subdomain (del) to the URL.

Learn More about Domain Names

Purchase A Domain Name...the Effective Way!
The only free guide you'll need before you purchase a domain name! Don't even think of registering a name and starting a site until you read this strategic resource. Be smart, crafty and tactical with your choice: here's how!
The Only Domain Name Appraisal Guide You'll Ever Need!
Wondering how much your domain names are worth? This domain name appraisal guide takes you through the basics of becoming an amateur appraiser - with no false promises or uninformed ramblings!

Content Writing for On-Page Optimization

Content is the #1 most important aspect of SEO. More than ever, search engines look for pure, original, and helpful content. All content must be personally written from scratch. Search engines know when something has been copied and pasted from another site...even if that site is ranked millions of pages back in a search query! Copying already-existing content from another site, RSS feed or even a PDF will not benefit your site in any way. Your site will be penalized or banned from search engines if it is using plagiarized material, which has been reported by the original author.Proper spelling and grammar counts to search engines!Content that is regularly updated will be noticed by search engines. It helps them know that you're paying attention to your content, and updating obsolete information.Emphasize important terms and keywords within your content using bold and italics. They'll stand out to search engine spiders, and help rank your page. That goes for the occasional word or phrase fragment...NOT an entire paragraph!Remember that PDF documents are also spidered by search engines. It's always better to put content directly within a web page than on a PDF. Offer the PDF as a downloadable item if you wish.Keyword saturation is a part of SEO. It involves the number of times your most important keywords are repeated on a single page. Most webmasters aim to get a 3%-7% saturation rate for their most valued keywords or keyword strings. It's generally dangerous to get above 10% saturation for a word, as that may involve search engine penalties. Look at your keyword saturation by using a keyword density checker, or this tool for 2+ word keyword density.

META Attributes

This age-old technique has been greatly watered down since the internet of the 1990s, but truly cannot be ignored. Use it as an integral part of your SEO toolbox! You just might be pleasantly surprised. Title: This tag sets your "website name" at the top left corner of a browser. It does much more, though - it is used as another major determining factor for a browser to get a glimpse of what your site is about. Tweak your title tag to include only a few major keywords about your site, followed by your site name. It is not unusual to get a high search engine ranking just for a particular keyword that you've inserted in your title tag, as long as it is further backed up in your page content. For instance, "Golf club reviews, pictures and bargains | GolfClubs.com" tells you what the site is about, and has important keywords, too. Best of all, it doesn't look or sound spammy.Meta Keywords: As you may already know, these are the keywords that are manually set to a webpage. They are still used by search engines to help determine the "gist" of what your page is about. A common misconception is to think that Meta Tags should be single words; when in fact, they can actually be phrases as well. For instance, if your TV fan site has meta keywords "tv, television, sitcoms, programs" - try adding "wednesday afternoon primetime shows, nightly news programs, shows for children". META Keywords are now practically worthless, as none of the major search engines use them as a factor to rank websites anymore.ALT Attribute: ALT is very commonly ignored by newbie webmasters. Originally, they added a text description in the place of a non-loading image, which was intended for browsers that were text-only. Today, they help search engines determine what the picture is about, which is then co-related to the information around it. In turn, it is added to the overall "view" of the page, and may help rank your site better. Improve it by adding relevant keywords about that image, or keywords important to the page that a particular image is located on. The ALT attribute of an image is the #1 factor involved in ranking an image in a Google Image search (or on other search engine's image search features).TITLE Tags: (Not to be confused with Page Title) TITLE tags define what your hyperlink is about. Think of it as the "ALT" of hyperlinks. By setting a TITLE tag for your hyperlinks, you are further emphasizing what they are about by showing additional information that pops up over a link when you hover over it. While it does nothing for your SEO strategy (it is not a ranking factor), it does help visitors know more about what they'll be seeing when they click a link.Headings: Also known as the H-tags (H1, H2, H3, etc); headings help a search engine see the "hierarchy" of content on your site. For instance, use H1 on the main title of a page (don't confuse this with the "title tag," we're talking about body content right now). Use H2 on the sub-title that falls under the main title. Continue this hierarchy for the rest of your page. Search engines will notice the main and sub titles, helping them realize how content flows. If you don't like the way headings look, you can always change their size in the CSS stylesheet. For instance, you can set H1, H2 and H3 to 12pt Arial if you wanted, without losing the benefit of any of those H-tags.Hyperlinks: There's so much more you can do with a hyperlink. Rather than stating: "For the best sports car resource, click here," try: "The best sports car resource." By including keywords within the URL itself, you're helping to boost the hyperlink's importance in regard to those words. The text included within a link is called anchor text.

Making Websites Easy to Crawl

A well-designed site is not only amicable for your visitors, but for search engines, too. Linking, structure and clarity all count when determining your site ranking. Never, ever include content (text) within Ajax, Flash, JPG images, or any other format that search engines can't read. Remember: if the spider can't see it, you won't get credit for it in search engine rankings.Don't nest content within too many tables. In other words, if you have content that is within a table that is within another table that is within another table (and so on), the search engine will find it to be unfavorable.If your website software utilizes tags, use them to their fullest capacity. Tags are used by search engines to link relevant pages within the same website together. They're kind of like categories within categories. So, link all "car" pages with tags like "cars, automobiles", etc. Sometimes, your site will appear in a search result purely because of a tag that is assigned to a page!In all, make sure your site is as easy as possible for a search engine to spider it, and for a user to navigate it.

Getting Backlinks to Help Rank Your Site

Backlinks are links that are found on other websites that link to yours. When many sites link to your site, it is seen as being more important to a search engine. Keyword-specific links pointing to your site will improve your rankings for that keyword. Through social networking, you can build relationships with other webmasters, and eventually ask for a keyword-loaded link to your site from their articles. Be sure to reward them back the same way.Thanks to the no-follow attribute script, some links pointing to your site will count as a weak backlink that passes no influence on to your site. Websites including Wikipedia (and many other wikis), message boards, and most large or famous websites that allow community added content are included in the fray. Without it, everyone would be promoting their website for free, and spamming would be out of control. In short, if a big-name site allows you to add a link to their page, then 9 chances out of 10, it is using the no-follow attribute.Backlinks that come from your other websites on the same server probably will not count. Search engines put very little (if any at all) emphasis on backlinks coming from sites that are located on the same server or IP address.Clicks that come from e-mail referrals are indeed being noticed, and count as great links - even though they are not "static" or permanently live on the internet.

Learn More about Backlinks

DoFollow: Increase Your Backlinks with DoFollow Sites
The DoFollow revolution embraces the sharing of link juice going out to other sites. Learn more about DoFollow, where you can get listed on DoFollow sites, and what it means to you as a webmaster and link builder!

Internal Linking

Internal linking is the practice of building backlinks within your own site - these are traditionally seen in breadcrumb trails (i.e. Home » Quizzes » Math Quizzes), or links to parts of your site within rich content. Never underestimate the power of internal links, as they also greatly assist search engines in "understanding" what your pages are about!
You can also hyperlink key phrases or keywords within your body text to respective pages on your site. This is a natural form of inter-linking that will help those pages rank for those linked terms. If you notice, Google Webmaster keeps track of your internal link count. It's considered an important factor.

Cheating & Blackhat Tactics...Don't Do It!

"Black hat" practices involve using underhanded techniques to cheat search engines and the processes they use to rank pages. Even if they appear to work, they will assuredly ruin or even eliminate your site from appearing in search results entirely. If a technique seems too good to be true, it probably is. Everything listed on this page is 100% legit for safe SEO practices. Anything involving buying traffic, buying many links at once, inserting code maliciously, or anything else that will appear sketchy or abnormal to search engines will probably hurt your site.Many illegal resources and e-books exist that teach black hat or "illegal" search engine optimization practices. You'd only be fooling yourself by attempting them. Remember, your site could be banned permanently from Google and others.

Getting Cached by Search Engines

While submitting your site to a thousand search engines with the click of a mouse sounds attractive, it most likely is not. Use diligence when submitting your site to search engines, and know their behaviors. Services that advertise "We'll submit your site to 1,000 search engines" might be more hurtful than helpful. It is possible to manually submit your site only the major search engines, and let the rest "collect" your site afterward. To be safe, submit to Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These three sites "syndicate" your site to the others. Sometimes, those "1,000 search engine" packages include spammy and/or malicious search engines, that will either hurt your site's reputation or attract harmful bots or scripts to attack your site. Many SEO professionals argue that letting spiders find a link to your site naturally is the quicker way to get "indexed," or listed on a search engine. You can do this by getting a link pointing to your site from a forum signature, social bookmarking site, or even a blog comment.Ping your site to let popular services know that you've updated your site, every time you add a new article to it. Ping-O-Matic is the most popular service for this.Notify search engines that you've added a new page to your site by updating your sitemap. Also called an XML feed or XML sitemap, they help search engines learn more about the structure of your website. It has become a more important aspect of website management as the years have gone by.

Learn More about Sitemaps

Sitemap Submission
If you're a webmaster, you may already know the importance of submitting a valid sitemap to top search engines. Here are the sitemap submission guidelines for Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com and more!

SEO for Images

Images have a newfound importance in SEO! Thanks to image searching options on search engines, your site can get recognition for offering helpful and relevant images. Name your image files accordingly. If you're displaying a picture of a blue vase, name the image "bluevase.jpg" or "blue-vase.jpg." This helps do several things: 1) associate the image with your content, 2) add to the overall idea of what your page is about, 3) give you the chance of having your image appear in an image search, which may bring in many unique website hits.Include ALT & TITLE within images. These two attributes, along with your well-named image, will help your image rank for services like Google Images.Embedded image information. This has never been proven, but rumors state that embedding information within your images will help their ranking. This can be done through Adobe Photoshop (through "File" >> "File Info") or Adobe Bridge. By filling in the "title", "keywords" and "description" fields, you'll further justify what your image is about.

Targeting and SEO

Targeting your audience properly is an important practice, to further stress your website's content. This practice brings together everything you've done, while attempting to "push" it all towards the proper market. Advertise your site to specific, relevant markets. Not only will it increase your website hits and possibilities of making more sales, but it will further associate your site with the theme of the site you're advertising on. Note that this purely refers to your link being added to another site, and does not count for pay-per-click programs (like AdWords). Pay-per-click advertising does not affect SEO in any way.Add your link to link directories, under the correct category. Link directories contain major categories (Arts, Computers, Jobs, Education, News, etc.) List your link under the most relevant category, to associate it with that category. Simply search the internet for "free web directory," there will be tons of them that you can submit your site to.

Ongoing Steps for SEO Success

Take a look at the following measures for daily or weekly maintenance of your website. These good SEO practices will keep your ranking high (and hopefully, higher!) Update your website's sitemap whenever new content has been added to your site. If you don't have one already, create a free Google Webmaster account, which lets you update your sitemap with the click of a button. (If you don't know what a sitemap is, read Wikipedia's description. See if your programmer or website service can set up an auto-generating sitemap script for your website - since it is usually too much work to create one manually). Otherwise, use sites like XML-Sitemaps.com to generate one for you, for free.Add new content on a regular basis! Don't forget to check all editorial in your favorite word processing program for grammatical and spelling errors before uploading.Use an analytical program, like the free Google Analytics, to check your daily site performance. By using this invaluable marketing tool, you can further enhance your site by seeing who is visiting, and what they are looking for. In turn, tweak your site according to those results to make it more helpful to both people and search engines. Don't be afraid to change your META title, description or keywords if you deem it necessary.Constantly work on getting more and more backlinks to your site, especially from websites that are in the same category or industry as yours. Make a personal goal - 1 new backlink per day, etc. The more, the better!

SEO: How do I...

...promote or improve the rankings of my web pages - their URLs aren't SEO friendly! There are two main ways to do this: 1) URL re-writing will allow you to point those nasty looking links toward whatever you specify. 2) If this is too much work to do (and it usually is, for large sites), you'll have to promote your backlinks wisely. Create backlinks that have nothing but your valued 1, 2 or 3-word keyword as the URL, and point it to the page you want to promote. Do this as much as humanly possible. Make sure your title, keywords and description for the page match that term, as well....know if someone has stolen my content? If so, what can I do to stop them? First, use a free service like Copyscape to search for duplicates of your content elsewhere on the web. If they exist, you'll want to file a DMCA report with Google to proceed with their ban from search engines, if you are successful in the ruling....prove that my website was live on the internet during such-and-such date? Visit Archive.org - it showcases what websites have looked like since the mid 1990s. It's a great resource, and held in very high regard as well!...contact Google? Find their email addresses here, or give them a call at 650-253-0000. Google is known for its excellent customer support - especially for users of their services AdWords, AdSense, Webmaster and Analytics....know if my site has been penalized from Google? Google has various penalties. For instance, the Google -50 penalty pushes your link down 50 spots. So, if you were ranking #2 and get the Google 50 penalty, your site then becomes ranked #52. This also counts for natural searches for your own domain name, itself. The only real way to check this is to type in "site:www.mydomain.com" in Google, and see where your site is ranking. The more severe the penalty, the further down you go. The remedy is to immediately spot and fix whatever has done this (usually, people who have done underhanded things to rank higher already know, or may have been ready for such an occurrence)....know if my site has been blacklisted from Google? Visit google.com and type in site:www.yoursitename.com, or, simply use this tool. If there are no direct results, your site either has not been indexed yet, or is blacklisted. To re-index your site, make sure you've fixed whatever problem has gotten you banned in the first place, and re-submit it.

Get Certified!

Ready to take the ultimate challenge? SEO Certification is still rare these days, but here are the most respected SEO certification programs today:
Google Advertising Professionals (GAP): This course certifies you as an AdWords professional. Although this is mainly Search Engine Marketing (SEM) based, a large degree of SEO knowledge is required. Being GAP certified is great for anyone in the SEM field, especially freelancers. This timed test has renowned as one of the hardest tests you'll take in your life - especially difficult to swallow with the $50 you have to pay to re-take the test, each time!
SEMPO: The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization is backed by major corporations that include Google, Microsoft, Yahoo & others. It has its own institute, which issues certifications.

Additional SEO Resources

Google Webmaster Guidelines
Straight from the horse's mouth - you'll want to adhere to Google's webmaster guidelines and be compliant!
Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF)
An official PDF guidebook for SEO, written by Google!
Web Developer's Cheat Sheet (PDF)
SEOMOZ.org put this handy cheat sheet together, it's a great printout that takes you through the routine that each new site should go through.

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